Running as Fast as I Can
by Amme Moto
Summary: Shepard never told the entire story of that night on Mindoir. In fact, only Shepard and Anderson know the full story. And they'd never tell anyone.
1. Beginnings

**Running As Fast As I Can**

**Chapter 1: Beginnings**

Jonathan Shepard knows you're not supposed to pick favorites, whether it is with children or with students or with siblings, but he couldn't help it. Kalisee Shepard was just so much _smarter _than the other two.

That was his own opinion anyway. And really, if he had been anywhere else but stuck on Mindoir, he would probably have made plenty of _normal _friends, and would not have had to stick with his own sisters. Really, he thought. There _had _to be better things to do in life than teach your younger three sisters how to fight.

Not that two of them took to it. Josephine (nicknamed Jo) was too interested in her natural biotic abilities, and spent most of her days following around the Alliance officials, looking to sneak into their own biotic lessons. Satana (pronounced Suh-Tah-Nah; she hated it when people said it Satan-ah, since it earned her the well-placed nickname "Little Demon") spent a little more time around him learning the ropes, but as soon as she accidentally sent a bully flailing toward the wall, she hung out with Jo constantly, learning all she could about biotics.

But Kalisee, twin sister to Jo and branded "black sheep" of the family, loved two things in life: fighting and technology.

One of which happened to be John's favorite thing.

So yes, Kallie was definitely his favorite sibling, insomuch that he taught her all he knew about fighting (even taught her how to shoot a pistol and a sniper, but don't _ever _tell their father because they'll both die) and even learned a bit about computers from her.

But today she is nowhere to be found.

John eventually finds her in the garage with her younger sister Satana. He looks through the crack in the garage door at two of his sisters, watching carefully as they try to get along long enough for the smaller to finish her homework. The smaller girl sits with a pensive look burning through her green eyes, scratching at her jet black scalp, inspecting the engine carefully. Slowly, she picks up a tool and sets upon the technology with it.

The older girl—sharing only her insanely bright green eyes in common with her sister—cocks a confident eyebrow. She shakes her head, swishing her red locks across her face.

"Satana, you're doing it wrong."

The smaller sister snarls. "Shut _up, _Kallie."

"All right, I'm just trying to help you."

Sparks fly from the engine, making the smaller sister cry out and Kallie to laugh. _Chunk! _"Damn it, sister, if you don't get out and leave me alone _right now _I'm telling Jo!"

_Indignant laughter. _"Oh? And what will Jo do?"

The door bursts open before he can leap out of the way, and a blonde-haired teenager bolts past him, tackling her red-head lookalike to the ground.

"She's going to pummel you!" Cries the girl, rolling Kallie onto her back and pinning her to the ground.

Kallie pushes a knee up and kicks Jo back from her. Jo stands back up, only to swish her hand across the air in front of her fallen twin. Now glowing bright blue, Kallie is lifted up into the air.

Ah. This old trick. Trapping Kallie in the air is a good way both to trap her and to enrage her. Feeling helpless is not one of Kallie's strong points. John crosses his arms and continues to watch, wondering how this will turn out.

A furious jerk comes from Kallie. "Some twin _you _are! Let me go!" She twists around in the air to face her smallest sister. "Demon, tell your dog to back down before I hack into the mechs and _kill her_!"

He shakes his head at this, opening the door all the way and entering the garage himself. "Such sisterly love in here," he laughs.

"John!" Kallie calls, wriggling around in the air to face him. She puts her hands behind her back and tries to looks as innocent as possible. It makes John snort. "_Get me down!"_

"Why are you stringing her up, anyway?" He asks, as if he hadn't listened in on the whole debacle in the first place.

"She was annoying my little sister." Jo shrugged. "And _no one _annoys my little sister."

"I was _trying _to fix the engine I broke at school, but Kallie comes in and says I'm doing it wrong!" Satana whines, crossing her arms and snarling at the suspended girl. "Then she laughed when I got shocked. _Laughed!_"

"It was funny, you nitwit." Kallie retorts. "You jumped like a bug."

Jo, the more mature of the two twins (though not by far, John thinks, since she _has _hung her own twin sister in the air and is enjoying her helplessness) tisks a few times and waggles her finger at Kallie. "Such hostility toward your own flesh and blood. Why don't you leave Satana alone and pick on someone who can actually take you?"

Kallie—ever the blunt one—spits at Jo. It lands just short of her shoe. John knows this is intentional. He's seen Kallie lob spit onto people's foreheads from yards away. "Oh, like _you_? I could take you in a fair fight."

"Says the one who is hanging in the air."

At this Kallie laughs. A large ball of fire shoots out from behind her back and launches itself at Jo. Jo shrieks, jumping backward and effectively losing her biotic grip on her sister. Kallie twists as she hits the ground and is on her feet before the fire has stopped harassing her twin sister, her omni tool glowing proudly on her arm.

Jo growls in aggravation. "Gods, I _hate _you, Kalisee Shepard!"

"Grow up, Josephine!" Kallie throws back. "You started it!"

Jo hurls a biotic sphere at Kallie, who ducks out of the way and sends another small puff of fire at her twin. In a twist of anger, Jo launches herself at Kallie, who hits the ground biting and scratching.

Satana has wisely gotten out of the way, sitting up on the table next to the power tools (their father was going to _kill _her if he found out, but Old Man Shepard never was home for most of the day. Hell, if Kallie was paying attention she might have laid it on Satana herself; that workbench was Kallie's whole life) and wrapped inside the ensuing battle.

John sighs and shakes his head once again, reaching out and grabbing Kallie and Jo by the backs of their necks and yanking them apart from each other.

"That's enough!" He shouts. "Look at the both of you. You're _fifteen years old_, and you're fighting like you're twelve."

Jo glares up at him. "But—"

"But _nothing_." He shakes the scruff of Kallie's neck. "Kallie, you should have been nicer to Satana while she fixed the engine."

Kallie glares daggers. John gives her another shake and she finally shrugs. "I guess so."

"Good." He sends a deprecating look toward Satana. "Little Demon, you do _not _have the right to sic your favorite sibling on your least favorite sibling. She _was _trying to help, and you should have been more tolerant."

Not willing to get roughed up like the twins are, Satana nods, wide-eyed. "Of course, brother dearest."

Well, that was a lie if John ever heard one. Satana indeed lived up to her nickname "Little Demon", intentionally instigating fights between two different kinds of enemies and watching them destroy themselves. What he just saw was her deciding she couldn't win again her brother and faking an admission of defeat. Once he nods to accept her "apology", she continues glaring at him for spoiling her fun.

He'd have to watch his back around her for a while. It was clear he was next on the Demon's Target List.

Giving Jo a shake—a little rougher than the shake he gave Kallie, but _only _a little—he gets her to look up at him. "You _can't _go around attacking your own twin like that, Jo. Someday you're going to wish you hadn't fought so much when you were young."

"Someday I'm going to _leave _Mindoir, and I won't have to see her face again!" Jo struggles in her attempt to break John's grip. He holds fast. "Then that'll be the end of it."

Jo is too angry to notice, but John can feel Kallie tense beside him. Her fists double up, and John knows she's not trying to avoid hitting her sister; she is digging her nails into her skin to keep from reacting to those words.

This time John's shake to Jo is not gentle. "That was very mean, Jo. Apologize to your sister."

Jo shakes her head. "No. She _deserves_ it."

Kallie looks the other way.

This is where John's knowledge of his sisters becomes murky. Jo and Kallie used to be inseparable, then one day, about a year ago, they suddenly couldn't stand each other. Satana knows what happened, he knows, but she won't say anything about it, either. John gets the feeling he wouldn't like his answer.

"Jo—"

"I don't give a _damn _if she says she's sorry." Kallie snarls. "I wouldn't accept it. And if she ever leaves Mindoir, it'd be a better place. That day can't come fast enough."

She breaks free of John's grasp and slinks out of the garage.

Satana now has the grace to look meek, and John thinks she's sincere. She slides down off of the counter and edges toward the two remaining siblings.

"Damn it, you two, why do you _do _that to her?" John asks, irritation showing through his voice for the first time. "What happened between you?"

Neither answers.

John groans. "Jo, when you decide to grow up, I expect you to find your sister and apologize to her."

Anger flashes through Jo's face as she defiantly glares her brother down."Or?"

"Or I tell Mom that you've been fighting with her again." John smirks. "In the garage."

Jo pales. "Fine."

He drops Jo to the ground and doesn't even wait to hear her indignant cry as she hits the ground. He leaves the garage in search of his favorite sibling.

Kallie is outside in the back, just as he suspected, fiddling with their broken mech. Another one of Satana's experiments gone awry. When Satana broke the news to the family that she'd decimated another mech, no one mentioned that it was the one that Kallie had built herself until she went out to see it for herself.

She wipes at her nose, but doesn't look up when her brother comes up behind her.

"Hand me the wrench." She says instead, keeping her face toward the mech.

John dutifully reaches into the toolbox and pulls out the necessary tool. He hands it to Kallie who begins working on her mech all over again. This is when he notices the small beacon poking out from the mech's head. He frowns at it and cocks his head. "I don't remember it having a scanner on its head."

"It's not a scanner." Kallie explains. "Well, it is, but that's not what I mean. It's supposed to look out for people nearing the vicinity."

John smiles. "You're building an alarm with a gun."

"Right." Kallie nods, wiping her brow. "I'm almost done, too. I just thought I'd get it finished while Dad was away and while Tweedles -Dee and -Dum are inside and not too likely to come around destroying my things."

John sighs. "I wish you'd tell me why you and Jo seem to hate each other now."

Kallie shrugs. "Sorry. I don't care about it that much."

"You're a good liar, you know." John flicks Kallie's dark red hair away from her shoulder, getting her to look at him. "But not to me."

Kallie gives a grunt of annoyance. "Gods, you're only a year older than us; how can you be so observant?"

"It's what happens when you spend that much time around me, I guess." John shrugs. "I get sharp-eyed."

Kallie snorts as she sits the mech up and shifts the back of its head off to switch the wires out. "You know, I bet that works on all the other ladies out there that aren't your sister."

It's John's turn to snort. "Have you _seen _the ladies out here? They're all under-educated bumpkins. No, when I get off of this rock, I'm going somewhere where there are all sorts of different kinds of women."

"Right."

There is silence for a while. John sits on the table beside Kallie—one placed there specifically so he would sit on _that one_, and not the actual workbench like so many are prone to do—and watches Kallie as her total focus is absorbed on the machine.

Finally he can't take the silence anymore. "Will you ever make up with Jo, Kalisee?"

Kallie's movements still. She doesn't turn to look at John as she replies. "Probably not."

John is not satisfied with that answer.

The mech flickers to life as Kallie places the back of the head on.

"Does it work?" John asks, inching closer to the tall white machine.

"Let's find out." Kallie retorts. "Mech, how many sapiens are in the vicinity?"

A whirring sound echoes through the machine before it replies. "Thirty-four sentient life forms within a two-hundred yard radius."

Kallie frowns while John shakes his head. "That can't be right." She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "How many _human life forms _are within the area?"

Again the machine's eyes blink in and out of existence before answering. "Six humans in the area: Shepard, Jonathan; Shepard, Kalisee; Shepard, Josephine; Shepard, Satana; Shepard, Martha; and Shepard, Frederick."

"Dad's home?" John asks. "It's the middle of the day. He should still be at work."

"Mech, why are there thirty-four sentient life forms in the area, but only six are human?" Kallie asks the machine, ignoring John. "What are the other twenty-eight?"

"There is no data."

"Looks like your machine isn't completely working." John snickers. "You must have twisted the wrong wire."

"The wires are correct. I double-checked them." Kallie states. "Maybe I need to recalibrate the angle of the beacon. Maybe—"

"Warning!" The mech cries loudly. "Warning! Armed individuals within a hundred-yard radius!"

"Okay," Jonathan grabs at Kallie's arm and pulls her back. "This thing is starting to scare me now. Let's get back inside." 

"But—"

John forcibly drags Kallie away from her mech and into the house. They are met in the living room by an anxious Jo followed by Satana.

"What was that?" She asked. "We were leaving everyone alone and then suddenly something screams _'armed individuals within a hundred-yard radius!' _What kind of monstrosity did you make this time?"

John opens his mouth to answer for his sister when a large _BOOM_ shakes the entire house to its core.

The front door flies open and Frederick Shepard barrels through. He carries two large guns with him.

"Kids, get to the shelter." He barks, turning to look out the window. "_Now_."

"What's happening?" John asks, pulling the curtain back to inspect the world outside. Kallie leans over his shoulder to look with him.

Kallie's mouth drops. "Oh, my god."

A dread runs through John. "What are they?"

"I don't know," Their father answers. "But they don't look friendly. Get _out _of here. Run."

Martha, their mother, enters from the kitchen and takes one of the guns. "We'll hold them off. Go out the back and run for the woods. As fast as you can. Don't look back."

Kallie is the first to obey. She pulls John with her, who grabs at Satana and Jo as they head out the back.

"Damn it!" Jo cries as she kicks the back door. "One of you idiots _locked it_."

John frowns. "No, we didn't."

Kallie growls. "It doesn't _matter_. I'll go get the card key."

Before John can tell her not to, she bolts off to the front of the house.

Not a moment after she's out of sight, there is a sound like a door being kicked in, and an unbearably loud shriek. John shoves his two sisters back against the wall and bursts into the living room.

Kallie is on her knees, staring dazedly at two peach-colored puddles on the ground.

Standing in front of her are two aliens John has never seen before. Each of their four eyes is fixated on Kallie, who has not moved an inch.

John throws himself at the two aliens, startling them, and picks up one of the guns lying on the ground. He empties the cartridge in one of the aliens before he can safely drag his sister out of the room.

Taking the card key from her hand, he unlocks the door and all four siblings leave.

She will not walk. John has to drape an arm over his shoulder and practically carry her away from the house. They make it to the forest before he feels safe enough to set her down and try to bring her back.

"Is she all right?" Jo asks, taking one of Kallie's hands in hers and rubbing it lightly. "Kallie? Wake up!"

Kallie does not respond.

"She's—" For one of the first times in their lives, Satana sounds scared. "She's not dead, is she?"

John takes her head in his hands and shakes her softly. "Kalisee, you've got to say something. _What happened_?"

Kallie blinks. Then she leans over to John's right and promptly throws up.

"Good God, Kallie, what happened?" Satana pleads. 

Kallie takes a shuddering breath. "Mom. Dad."

"What happened to them?" Jo asks. "Were the all right?"

"Melted." Kallie leans over and vomits again.

John's blood runs cold. The gun he'd picked up—the one laying in the yellowish puddle—

He thinks he'll be sick, too.

"_Melted_?" Jo repeats. "As in _dead_?"

"Melted!" Kallie restates. She takes a deep breath and regains her speech skills. "I don't know what they were, but we have to _get out of here_!"

A proud roar resounds from the house, and an explosion sends the whole place in flames. Aliens are leaving the ruined mess and are making their way for the woods.

For them.

John hangs on to his gun as he turns to his sisters. "There's nothing we can do about that now." He states. "All we can think of now is getting out alive." He looked Kallie over once. "Are you going to be okay?"

Still looking green, Kallie nods.

"Good. Run, as fast as you can, without looking back."

Satana's eyes widen. "What about you?"

John grasps on tighter to the gun in his hands. "I'll play distraction."

There is a resounding _NO! _between the three sisters, and John thinks he's never loved his family as much before.

The aliens have spotted them now, and are taking aim with their own guns. John must act fast.

"Look, I'm the oldest, so I've had more time to live than the rest of you. Go. As fast as you can. Without looking back." They open their mouths to protest. "No arguing. Promise me you'll all look out for each other for as long as possible."

Silence.

"Jo, Kallie, Satana, _please_. Promise me."

Kallie cries as she replies first. "I promise."

"I promise, too." Jo repeats.

Satana nods, her eyes also wet with tears. "I promise, Johnny."

"Good. Now _run_."

Kallie hugs her brother tightly one last time, kisses him on the cheek, then disappears into the woods, dragging her sisters with her.

**XXXXX**

**How about it? This is the start of a 100 prompt challenge I'm going to try to do, but I have a bad habit of not being able to write drabbles, so the 100 prompts might be long.**

**And I like this one as a good opener. I might actually continue this one on its own, depicting each sibling's fight through Mindoir. Only one of them can become Commander Shepard. Go to my profile to vote which one you like best!**

_**Amme Moto**_


	2. Fire

**Running as Fast as I Can**

**Chapter Two: Fire**

Lieutenant-Commander David Anderson is awakened from his sleep by the blaring alarm on his computer and the bright flashing light emanating from it. He rolls out of bed—glad that he accidentally fell asleep in his uniform—and turns it on with a flick of a switch.

A face appears on the screen, a lean, brown-eyed man who salutes amiably when the Lieutenant-Commander nods to him.

"Lieutenant Zabaleta, is there something I can do for you?" Anderson asks, rubbing his face to rid himself of sleep.

The man on the screen salutes. "The Captain wants to see you right away, sir."

Anderson nods, trying to stifle a groan. "All right. I'll be right there."

**XXXXX**

They stop once; long enough for Kallie to uncover a hidden cache and pull out a pistol and some thermal clips. Then they are off again. They run for as long as possible, swerving between trees and broken logs.

Jo doesn't even want to know how she knew where the cache was. There are some things in life that Jo knows are right. Some things you just can't argue with, like, say, if Jo catches her sister making out with her boyfriend just once, her sister's pride and cowardice require her to lie and say otherwise—even when Jo's boyfriend _said _that Kallie had thrown herself at him.

Or say if their entire colony on Mindoir was razed by monsters capable of melting unsuspecting parents, and said sister had the only gun, it was naturally assumed that this sister was in charge.

She doesn't have to like it, though.

"Kallie, _stop_!" Jo yanks her arm away from her twin sister and leans against a tree. Kallie begrudgingly comes to a halt beside her, still keeping a hold on Satana.

"Stop?" Kallie huffed, resting her arms on her knees. "We don't have time to stop! Those things are coming!"

"What are those things?" Satana asks, sliding to Jo's side and laying a hand on her shoulder.

"I don't know." Kallie replies.

Jo lets out a huff. "You _don't know_?" She repeats. "How can you not know? You _saw _them!"

"They're tall, have four eyes, and they have guns that can _melt _people. What more do you need to know?" Kallie spits.

Jo snorts to herself and shakes her head. As scared at Kallie seems, Jo can't bring herself to sympathize. Her sister was clearly overreacting. There's no way an alien race would come to wipe _them _out. They'd done nothing to anyone. This… this was most likely a prank from their brother gone horribly wrong. The house was set on fire, even.

Maybe Kallie saw something she wasn't supposed to; something that made her think their parents were melted. Maybe if they went back home, their parents would be there, yelling at John for his lack of foresight.

Because there is no way this was happening. Jo and Satana are being pulled along by Kallie in a panic. They weren't in any sort of danger.

"I think you're overreacting, sister." Jo states. "We need to take a deep breath and think this through."

"Think?" Kallie laughs in a way that seems more desperate than aggravated. "There's no time to think. You stay in one place and they'll find you. They're attacking our home. We need to find help."

"It will take us too long to get to the town on foot." Satana speaks up, stepping in between the two twins. Her green eyes flash in warning. "Let's go back and get the ET3 and _drive _to the town."

"Right. When we go we can save John, too." Jo agrees. "Since you dragged us away from him before we could get a word in."

Kallie tenses. Jo has hit a sensitive spot talking about abandoning John—Kallie's favorite sibling because he was the only one who would tolerate her for copious amounts of time—and she knows it. She flips her dirty-blonde hair over her shoulder.

"You don't know what we're up against, do you sister?" Asks Kallie in a tight voice. "If we go back, they'll kill us."

"You chicken!" Jo screams. "What are we supposed to do, then? Walk to the settlement? Leave our brother to _die _with those things?"

"Chicken?" Kallie retorts. "_Chicken_? I'm the only one thinking of our survival! We need to get as far away from here as possible. As soon as possible."

Jo crosses her arms. "And who said you could call the shots?"

Kallie opens her mouth to snarl something back.

Both girls are startled out of their argument at the sound of a falling tree. It slams into the ground, and though neither can see it, they can hear the snapping of branches, and they can feel the ground quaking.

They can hear the flames licking through another tree. And they can hear the garbled cries of the aliens coming after them.

Jo pales, her azure eyes widening in disbelief. _This is not a joke_, she finally realizes. _There's no way John would let it go this far._ "They set the woods on fire."

Kallie snatches Satana's hand and takes off. "Run!"

Jo follows, pushing down the resentful feeling that Kallie always thinks of Satana first, and leaves Jo to either catch up or fall behind.

The flames quickly outpace the aliens chasing them. Soon after they hear it following them, Jo can feel the heat licking at her calves as she runs by her sisters, and right after she can even see it as she glances back.

The smoke is excruciating. It envelopes all three sisters and sends them all coughing. Jo can feel tears pouring down her eyes, but can't even see her sisters standing beside her as they all reach a halt.

"I can't see!" Satana cries as she trips over a root and nearly brings all of them sprawling to the ground. "There's too much smoke!"

She takes Satana's other hand and pulls her forward. "We need to get out of these trees before we suffocate."

"No!" Kallie argues. "If we leave the trees we're out in the open. That's exactly what they want."

"How are we supposed to get out of here if we can't use the trees for cover?" Jo asks, her fear returning full force as she hears the strange language of the aliens behind them. "They're catching up to us! Either we stay in here and die or get captured, or we leave and the same thing happens. Unless we can dig a hole and hide until this all blows over, we're doomed."

Satana gasps, tugging sharply at Jo's arm. "I know!"

Kallie frowns, still coughing. "What?"

"Come on! Follow me!" Satana grips Jo's hand tightly, surging forward and dragging both sisters with her. "I know where we can go."

**XXXXX**

Lieutenant-Commander Anderson subconsciously smoothes out his uniform as he enters the Captain's office. It's a pretty base uniform; a simple black shirt underneath his Alliance jacket along with dark cargo pants, but he's off-duty, and Captain Einer prefers a somewhat informal ship to keep the tension low so close to the Terminus system.

"Captain Einer," Anderson stands straight and salutes the large man sitting at the desk. "You wanted to see me?"

Captain Einer looks big enough to lift a Mako. Even with his complete uniform on; his jacket buttoned up and his slacked nicely pressed, he still looks like a giant bear in an Alliance suit.

Yet this is the most misleading thing about him. As big as he is, most people expect Einer to be a big, lumbering powerhouse during battle. No one ever suspects that this man can move as fast as the tiniest member of the Alliance.

The dark-eyed man nods at Anderson's salute. "Anderson. Yes, I'm sending you on a recon mission."

Anderson frowns. "Sir?"

"The communications to our base on Mindoir have been cut off. I'd like you and a small team of five to check it out." The Captain clarifies. He smiles ruefully and shakes his head. "There have been all kinds of problems with the settlement made on Mindoir, of course, so I'm not expecting much. They're probably just getting interference with the local fauna. Some of those plants grow faster than anything I've ever seen."

"We're going to help them set their communications relay back up, sir." Anderson explains.

"Precisely. Lieutenant Zabaleta will be part of your team; I trust your judgment to find four more soldiers. You will leave in half an hour and give hourly reports from then out. Are we clear?"

Anderson salutes again. "Yes, sir!"

"Good. Dismissed."

Anderson leaves, skimming the list of soldiers in his mind, and picking out four other names.

"Corporal," Anderson calls to a passing soldier.

The woman salutes Anderson briefly before breaking into a smile. "Yes, LC?"

"Get me Zabaleta, Yash, Itzel, Hanson, and Keller. Tell them to suit up and meet me in the debriefing room in _five minutes_."

The Corporal repeats the five names again softly in her mind. Confident she's got them down, she nods to her commanding officer. "Of course, Lieutenant-Commander. Right away."

Anderson runs a hand across his head before making his way back to his room to suit up.

**XXXXX**

Jo follows her younger sister toward the edge of the woods without question, glaring at Kallie when she hesitates and starts to argue again. "For _once_, Kallie, _please _just let someone else decide what we're going to do."

Kallie glares but doesn't reply. She follows Satana without further comment.

Jo is glad they're getting out of the woods, at least. The air becomes breathable the closer they get to the end, and Jo can go a few steps without stumbling over some root or another now.

They come to the end of the forest and end up at a huge clearing. Jo doesn't remember seeing this place before, but she's not going to second-guess Satana. Kallie doesn't know because she spends so much time thinking about herself, but Satana spends most of her time exploring the colony. She probably knows the entire area better than the soldiers stationed there.

"There," Satana whispers as she points out across the field to a pair of towering stones. "There's a storm drain on the other side of those boulders. If we can get down in there, we can get to the colony from _underground_."

Jo pulls her little sister into a hug. "Satana, you're a genius!"

"It's a good idea," Kallie—ever the downer—crosses her arms and scans the area. "But we'll be out in the open trying to get there. That's practically begging them to shoot us."

"You've got that gun." Jo rolls her eyes, sounding as derogatory as possible. "_Use _it."

Kallie's eyes widen and her grip on the pistol tightens.

"Okay." Kallie concedes. She checks the gun; cocks it and points it downward. She takes a breath, and for the first time, Jo thinks that Kallie might not know what she's doing.

Does she even know how to _use _a pistol? Jo remembers Johnny mentioning them once in a while, but she'd never been interested in guns herself. Had Kallie ever fired a gun? Maybe she only knew where they were, not how to use them.

_And I practically asked her to kill someone with it._

Jo opens her mouth to apologize—even a cheating, sleazy twin sister doesn't deserve the task of _killing _someone.

Kallie is already talking, though. "Run. Fast. Don't look back for anything. Don't stop."

Jo tightens her grip on Satana.

"Go." Kallie darts out from the trees first, heading toward the growing flames and the aliens following the fire.

"Kallie!" Jo cries out. She starts after her twin only to be yanked back by Satana.

"Let's go." Satana drags her sister across the field, running as fast as possible.

**XXXXX**

**It's shorter than the last chapter, but I figured I'd rather have shorter chapters and update more often. Usually when I do super-duper long chapters they take longer to do. :P**

**Still go and vote for which Shepard you want to survive. It matters. If enough people do it, I'll tell you who's winning.**

**There is no history for Captain Anderson between the book **_**Revelation **_**and the Mass Effect game, so I stuck him here. Trust me, I know where this is going. I have this all planned out, just not written.**

**Reviews would be nice! They feed my plot bunnies.**

_**Amme Moto**_


	3. Shoot

**Running as Fast as I Can**

**Chapter Three: Shoot**

Kalisee Shepard does not want to die.

This is a pretty basic thought. No one _wants _to die. At least, she didn't think so. As much as she thought about death this last year or so, she'd never considered actually killing herself.

Maybe it was cowardice. She'd learned to fire a pistol from her brother, and she knew where he kept them in the house, but she could never bring herself to take one and do the deed. Maybe her sister was right when she called her a coward.

Then again, Jo wasn't the one barreling toward the wave of aliens bent on their destruction, was she?

She'd heard her sister cry out when she started moving. Thankfully, Satana pulled Jo along with her. They were now making their way across the field. There was no sense in getting more than one of them killed while trying to make it to the storm drain, and Kallie figures she would only resent a last-minute, I'm-forgiving-you-because-you're-about-to-die sentimental scene. She continues hurdling toward the wave of terrible monsters without looking back.

Then the monsters notice Kallie running toward them. Out of the four of them, one of them cries out and points. Kallie can't understand them, but she can guess what they're saying to each other. Especially when one of them raises his pistol and aims at her.

Kallie slides to a stop and tosses a thermal clip straight toward one of the watching aliens. Her omnitool glows to life and she hurls a spitball of fire after the clip.

The clip ignites and explodes, enflaming two of the aliens at once.

A shot rings out across the field, deafening Kallie's ears and making her shriek as pain rips through her arm. Gritting her teeth, she raises her own pistol and fires at one of the remaining aliens.

Smoke surrounds Kallie as the two charred aliens hit the ground and ignite the dry grass. She doesn't know if she's hit one of the aliens left standing or not. She turns and bolts back down the field.

**XXXXX**

Lieutenant-Commander Anderson sits behind his desk fifteen minutes before the mission is set to begin, trying to shake the instinctual foreboding crawling up his spine. It usually gripped him right before some calamity struck, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what might be wrong.

He'd gone around and checked every station of the ship for anything that might go wrong, but no one had anything to report. As far as anyone knew, the ship was in mint condition. There was nothing for him to worry about.

Then why is his hand constantly readjusting its grip on his gun?

Anderson is not an idiot, nor is he green; he goes with his instincts, no matter what they tell him or where they tell him. They've saved his life many times before.

Still, since there is nothing wrong with the ship, he has to think there might be something wrong with the planet below.

"_Lieutenant-Commander?" _His holoscreen flashes to life as one of the soldiers pages him. _"Sir, we might have a problem."_

Anderson chuckles dryly. "What makes you think that, soldier?"

"_Sir, even when communications are out, there are still hourly reports being sent through unofficial channels, as a sort of backup plan." _The soldier clears his throat. _"But even these reports have stopped. There's been absolutely nothing from the world of Mindoir for hours."_

This makes the hackles on the back of Anderson's neck rise. If he wasn't the only one feeling uneasy, maybe there was something more going on than they thought. Still, if there had been any trouble, the distress signal would have gone off on the Alliance base on Mindoir. It just wouldn't make _sense _for the settlement on Mindoir to get attacked but the Alliance base wouldn't call for help.

"Soldier, there's nothing wrong with the world of Mindoir." Anderson insists. "It's a farmer's world; Alliance equipment isn't built to last long around all of that constantly-growing fauna."

"_But sir—"_

"Be ready in five minutes, Itzel. We'll go down there, have Zabaleta twist some wires, and we'll be back in a few hours."

**XXXXX**

Kallie was not aware that she could run so fast for so long.

The pain in her arm is still burning, but it gives her something to concentrate on other than the wildly burning woods beside her and the angry, regrouping monsters behind her. The latter are actually firing shots at her, though they glance off to the sides of her as she runs.

During her long but educational flight across the field and to the storm drain, Kallie has learned quite a few things.

One: The monsters burning through their house had little guns, but the ones here run about with larger, shotgun-esque models. The one with the pistol had been the one she'd set on fire first.

Two: It's harder to aim at a little target with a bigger gun. Kallie figures these monsters were prepared for a little self-defense, and had not counted on human's fight-or-flight to result in the latter. They are probably shocked she's running away at all.

Three: Pain diffuses panic.

This is probably the one thing that keeps Kallie alive as she darts down the field, making for the tiny hole in the ground, covered in cement. She isn't too sure she can even fit through the hole, but now isn't the time for worrying about semantics like that. Kallie gives one last burst of energy toward the drain and slides in feet-first.

Kallie skids to the ground painfully and groans, grasping her burning arm and biting her tongue to keep from screaming. She hears something _crack_ underneath her and has a bad feeling that it's her ankle.

There is nothing but darkness around her. Kallie sucks in a breath and lets it out. It comes out as more of a whimper than anything.

Footsteps are heard above the storm drain, and that alien speech that makes Kallie's skin crawl slithers into her ears and makes her shiver. She covers her mouth and bites her fingers to keep from screaming.

Then, after what seems like a lifetime, the footsteps being to recede from the storm drain.

Kallie take a deep breath and sloshes away from the drain, stumbling every now and again as she can't feel her legs. She turns on her omnitool to give her an orange glow for light. Then, as far away from the drain as she is willing to get for the moment, she takes a look at her arm.

Kallie cringes at the pain spiking through her arm, but still manages to hold it up long enough to realize she's been shot. Blood dribbles down from the wound and around her shaking hands, making them sticky as she readjusts her hold on the pistol.

Sliding down the wall, she leans forward to check out her ankle. It didn't _look _broken, although she couldn't be totally sure; she hadn't been able to fully feel her legs since she decided to play distraction for her sisters. Her legs could have been shot to hell and she would have just kept _running_. Still, her ankle wasn't twisted at an awkward angle, even though it was swelling up terribly. She didn't think putting a lot of weight on it would be a good idea anytime soon.

Damn it, Kalisee had never been good at patching people up. That had always been Jo's job. She'd have to tie her arm up and hope it didn't lose _that _much blood while she kept moving. She rips up a torn part of her shirt—how it'd been torn she doesn't know, and really she doesn't care—and manages to tie a dirty, muddy bandage around her arm using her teeth and her other arm. 

_Well, _she thinks. _I have to keep going_.

As tempting at staying in the storm drain sounded, she had a feeling these aliens weren't stupid; sooner or later they would comb through there looking for people. Kallie couldn't be here when that happened. The best thing for her was to keep moving.

_Toward the Alliance base._

This is a good idea for many reasons. For one, the Alliance will surely grant her sanctuary and will get her somewhere safe while they fight off the monsters. Second, her sisters are travelling that way, too.

Far off in the distance, Kallie hears a menacing snarl, followed by a faint scream. Her knees give out at the sound and she plummets to the dank, dark ground.

Kalisee Shepard can't breathe. Her chest hurts. Heat blazes through her face and down her neck, plummeting all the way through her body. With trembling hands she reaches for her neck and grasps it. She closes her eyes and takes ragged breaths. The world spins around her. She _can't do this_.

She _has _to do this.

Opening her eyes, Kallie takes in one large, steady breath and manages to stand up. Black edges her vision now as she takes a step, but she's got to get to the end of the drain. It comes out in the middle of the colony, which is only a few steps away from the Alliance base. If her sisters were alive, they'd be going there.

And without a gun, they are going to be sitting ducks to whoever they meet next.

Ignoring the fact that she still can't breathe properly, that her legs are most decidedly _not _numb anymore but burning steadily as she takes a step, and that her wounded arm is now more of a distraction than anything, Kallie stumbles on.

**XXXXX**

**Sorry it took so long to get the next chapter out; I've been going through rough Writer's Block. I'm actually almost finished with the first chapter of ****Saving Face****, too, so don't forget to be on lookout for that one.**

**I'm in the mood for it, so I'm starting on the next chapter as soon as I post this one. With a little bit of luck it'll be up soon.**

**Don't forget to vote for the Shepard you want to see survive!**

_**Amme Moto**_


	4. Bite

**Running as Fast as I Can**

**Chapter Four: Bite**

There are some people in the world who go into full blown panic in the face of death, but not Satana. Satana learned long ago that if you panic, you're definitely going to die. Since Satana wants to stay alive, she figures it's wise to simply avoid the panicking stage altogether, and get right along to the part where solutions are made.

There is simply no point in panicking. If you're going to die, then screaming and throwing yourself around helplessly isn't going to get you saved any faster. Much better to think the situation through, and do as much damage as possible going out.

Which is why Satana suggested the storm drain in the first place. The woods obviously weren't working, and Kallie was right when she said going into the open field was the worst thing they could do. So why not use Satana's knowledge about the colony to get there? She knew the storm drain ended up in the middle of the colony, and from there they would be able to get the Alliance base, where they would be safe. The only problem would be running across the field without getting shot, but Satana was sure if they went fast enough, they would be okay.

Then Jo, gods love her, had to open her mouth and smart off to her evil twin, driving said sister away and toward the very people they were running from.

A wave of sadness crashes into Satana at the sight of her sister running into the jaws of death, but she takes the small chance her sister gives them. Grabbing Jo (who is about to start running pell-mell toward Kallie and the monsters-of-death) tightly around the arm, Satana drags her sister out into the open and toward the drain, throwing her inside and sliding down herself.

Jo snarls at her only remaining sister but doesn't say anything. She and Satana always had the sort of sixth sense around each other that Jo and Kallie lacked. Satana wants to laugh at the irony, really, but she can't find the gumption to.

"Come on." Satana says to Jo. "We have to get going. They're going to look down here sooner or later."

Giving a weak nod, Jo grasps Satana's hand and leads the way down the tunnel.

Satana lets her sister lead the way for two reasons: one, they were actually going the right way, and two, it gave Satana the time she needed to think about their situation.

It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes since Satana had been in her father's garage, trying to fix her botched-up engine for school. And now she and her sister are scrambling for their lives underneath the colony they'd been raised in. It was hard to wrap her head around; she'd never been in so much danger before. It all seemed surreal.

Not only that, she is sure the Shepard family was never meant for such harsh circumstances. Twenty minutes in, and her parents are dead (_don't think about that, don't think about that, don't think about that_) and two of her siblings are gods know where, fighting for their lives.

_Or already dead_.

Satana shakes the thought from her mind. Sadness and panic will not help her; therefore she has no use for them. She can't fix what has already happened. All she can do is keep Jo alive.

Which isn't as easy as it looks: Jo is shaking beside her sister and is probably only still moving on adrenaline. Jo's shoulders convulse, and Satana can see quite easily that Jo is having a hard time coming to terms with that Kallie had just pulled.

"There's nothing we could have done to help her." Satana points out. "She'd made her mind up."

"No, Satana." Jo replies, clamping her hands firms on her shoulders and shuddering. "It's my fault she ran off like that. I've killed my own twin."

"Probably." Satana has never been one to sugarcoat the truth. Jo visibly jerks at the admonition. "But we're still alive. Can we feel guilty about what happened after we get out of this alive?"

Jo seems to consider the proposition as they continue walking. While her sister is thinking, Satana gently leads her around a bend in the sewer and through a new path. By her estimation, they are fairly close to the center of town. If her direction sense is right, there should only be a few more openings left before—

Something behind the sisters growls menacingly. The two freeze in place as the growling turns into an open-mouthed snarl. Satana can feel the dread inside her mind turning into blind fear (_panic has no use panic has no use panic has no use—)_ as she slowly turns to face this new terror.

There, standing only scant yards away from the two girls, are three large—things. They clacked their unusually large teeth and scraped their giant, dark gray claws along the concrete ground. Satana couldn't tell what they were—dogs, maybe?—but their intent is clear: their hunched shoulders and snarling faces said that Satana and Jo were soon going to be dinner.

**XXXXX**

Lieutenant-Commander David Anderson stands in front of his mirror, straightening out his armor. He holsters his guns firmly into place and gives himself another once-over.

He grunts as he sees nothing but tired eyes and wrinkles. _You, sir, are not allowed to look so old at thirty-two. _

Ever since the travesty he'd made at his Spectre career Anderson has been feeling ten years older than he actually is. Granted, his position in the Alliance hasn't been harmed from his time spent with Kahlee Sanders and Saren Arcturius, but only because their mission has been kept under tight wraps. He feels sure that if word got out, he would have a hard time finding work.

But that isn't his worry at the moment. His uneasy feeling hasn't gone for an instant, and each second spent acting like everything is normal is another second that he's reminded that something is _wrong_, and he can't place it.

But damn it if he isn't going to try.

**XXXXX**

Satana feels her sister step very carefully in front of her as she feels her fear rise. Being eaten by dogs seems like such a useless way to go. She can't really think of anything other than _these things are going to kill us and we'll never see Kalisee or Jonathan or our parents ever again._

In front of her, Jo plants her feet and turns imperceptibly to the side. "We don't have any weapons." She whispers to Satana.

Satana distinctly remembers Kallie taking the only weapon they had.

She can't think. After all that's happened, these… these _mutant dogs _are the last thing she can handle. Her brain is shut off. Fight or flight has been suspended in her shock.

Satana is too afraid to move.

"Stay still." Her sister demands in front of her. There is no chance of Satana doing otherwise.

Then the dog mutants charge.

Satana remembers crouching low to the ground and covering her head. She remembers screaming as the dogs opened their large mouths and snarl ferociously.

Then she feels no pain. She doesn't feel like she's dead. Confused, Satana looks up cautiously to see why fate has spared her.

In front of her, Satana's sister Jo is glowing a bright blue color. Her hands are in front of her and her eyes are focused on the barrier circling around them. On the other side of her sister's barrier, the mutant dogs are throwing themselves forward, only becoming angrier each time they are thrown back again. 

Satana feels ashamed of herself. She is hindering her sister with her inability to cope with the situation. Why hadn't she remember that she can use her biotics as a weapon? Granted, her biotics aren't nearly as strong as Jo's, but they are useful all the same. She should have thought of that.

She can see her sister weakening, too. Each time one of the monsters crashes into the barrier, it ripples violently and Jo winces. Satana does not think to react until she sees a trickle of blood start down Jo's nose. She isn't as strong as the Alliance soldiers that she's been learning from; she won't be able to hold out for much longer.

At that point, Satana throws herself into action. Remembering what little training she's had in the field of biotics, she erects a barrier just around Jo's and shakes her sister's shoulder.

Jo's concentration breaks and she blearily looks toward Satana. Satana ignores her, instead focusing on the monsters that are now assaulting her own barrier. Each time one slams into her field there is an immense pressure in her head. Satana is not sure how she keeps from crying out each time one hurdles toward her.

She feels Jo's arms wrap around her waist and can feel herself being dragged backward, but she does not let go of the barrier. She will not lose concentration.

They'll both die if she does.

But she soon realizes that she can't stop the mutated dogs forever. They just keep coming, and Satana can't feel her arms anymore. Jo says something to her that she can't understand, and the arms that are dragging her backward suddenly swing her backward as hard as they can.

Satana stumbles and hits the ground, completely exhausted. The dogs descend on her sister Jo.

Jo screams. Her hands fly to her face before she hits the ground, and she thrashes as one of the dogs attaches itself to her exposed arm.

Another of the monsters makes his way to Satana, who is too scared and exhausted to move. With one last defiant snarl, Satana reaches for her last vestiges of energy to send the thing flying.

She hears it screech, so she thinks it must have hit something and been hurt. Good. She is glad to have done some damage before they finish her.

The third and final monster bounds for her and she couldn't care less. _I tried, damn it. I tried so hard._

Then, as the thing reaches down to bite her face off, it bursts into flame.

A surprised Satana cries out and rolls out of the way. Her own clothes catch fire and she can't for the life of her think of what to do to stop it. It's burning through her clothes and—

And then someone tackles her, slapping her skin, shooting pain through her body. Her eyes bring on a black tinge at the pain, and she thinks she might pass out. The hands stop smacking her eventually, and she's allowed to sit up.

From across the dark, grimy hall, Satana can see Jo Shepard crawl out from underneath the dead mutant above her. She cradles her arm close to her body and takes shaky breaths. Tears are streaming freely down her face, and she looks like she really wants to scream.

Satana frowns. If her sister was there, then who….

Her savior sits back against the sticky sewer wall, breathing heavily. Her pistol lay at her side, away from her shaking hand. She sobs out her breaths, clutching her chest with her other hand, trying to regain her breathing. Her arm is bleeding freely, although it looks like she's tried to patch it up hastily. Her shirt is covered in mixes of green and red; Satana thinks the green might be monster blood.

Satana stares in shock as Kalisee Shepard looks over both sisters, wheezing and trying to regain composure.

"Are…are you all right?"

Jo reaches Kallie first, but only because Satana is still in shock from nearly being killed by a dog. Jo wraps her arms around her twin and holds her tightly. Kallie winces, then pulls her not bloody hand up to hang onto her sobbing sister.

"I'm sorry, Kallie!" Jo cries into her twin's shirt. "I'm so sorry, I never meant for you to—to—"

Kallie tries to reply, but her breathing becomes worse. Her head drops and she visibly becomes weaker as she tries to remain sitting upright. Jo pulls back and Satana leans down to assess the damage to her sister, cringing at her own wounds. She is sure her burns were going to hurt worse later, but at the moment she can't feel a thing.

Jo gently pulls at Kallie's arm and inspects it. She turns pale when she sees how much blood Kallie's lost. "We need to get you to a hospital."

Satana hears herself snort. "What hospital? What are the chances that it's still standing and monster-free?"

"Well, then we need to get you some medi-gel." Jo rationalizes. "It'll at least numb the pain of this ankle of yours. And here—" She rips off a large part of her (destroyed) shirt that had been partially bitten off by one of the mutant dogs and wraps it securely around Kallie's arm. "That should at least stop the bleeding. Hopefully."

Jo pulls off another portion of her shirt and tends to her own arm. She's losing clothing fast, but they need bandages, so Satana doesn't complain.

She does, however, speak out. "The Alliance facility will have medi-gel. Better than that, they probably have a medbay."

"We need to get her there. Fast." Jo replies. She cringes at her sister before grabbing her arm. "I'm sorry for this, Kallie, but we need to get you up." She drapes her sister's unharmed arm over her shoulders and hauls Kallie up, groaning in pain at her own chewed-on arm.

Jo looks straight at Satana, a resolute look on her face that Satana has never seen before. "Lead the way, Demon. We've got to get to that base. Alive."

**XXXXX**

**Yeah….. Sorry about the two year break, guys. Or was it three years? Writer's Block is a bitch. Anyway, I'm hopefully back now. This is my debut piece, and I hope I can get the gumption to update a few other pieces before I burn out again.**

**Have a great day!**

_**Amme Moto**_


	5. Blow

**Chapter Five: Blow**

Jonathan Shepard takes it back. He loves all of his sisters equally. They're all amazing people and he hopes they all grow into the woman they dream to be.

He does not want his sisters to die. The oldest are only fifteen! And they're all so scared. He doesn't think he's ever seen his sisters scared of _anything _before. Sure, there was that one time Satana was attacked by lichen, and the time Jo was almost kidnapped, but in those situations they had that uncanny knack to flourish.

But they are his sisters, and he is their brother. He has to protect them. So when he ordered his sisters to run and took with him the assault rifle (at least, he _thinks _it's an assault rifle) he'd taken from one of the aliens, we takes off back toward the house, hoping to distract the aliens long enough to let his sisters get away.

John shoots wildly into the air at the aliens and makes as much noise as he can. As he hoped, they turn their attention to him and begin firing at him. He's both relieved that they took the bait and terrified that they were actually going to hit him.

He dives through a shattered window and back into his destroyed house. He can hear the aliens shouting at him. He can see from his place at the back of the house that the aliens have covered the only two doors out of the house and are moving to stop him.

He also sees the other few aliens with blowtorches. He knows they're blowtorches because the aliens are using them to ignite their living room. Flames blaze around the house, and for a moment Johnny can't think.

_They're burning his house down._

One of the aliens shoots at him, narrowly missing. The near-miss pulls him out of his shocked state as a few other aliens take aim to kill him.

They'll have to catch him, first. Two of them follow him up the stairs and toward his father's den.

John has a vague idea of what he is going to do when he gets there. He bursts through the door and checks for aliens; he bolts the door and drags a nightstand in front of it to keep it steady. Then he rushes to the window to check for his sisters. He can't see them. He can only hope that they know where to go for help.

Satisfied that he's at least given them a fighting chance, Johnny runs to his father's safe. As he yanks on the lock and realizes he's at one of the few safes his father owns that doesn't have the password to, he also feels a pang of longing to see his sisters again. Kallie could have gotten this lock open in just a few minutes.

As it was, John doesn't have that much time. He raises his assault rifle and points it straight at the lock. Then he fires three or four rounds. The safe blows open jarringly, spraying shrapnel into Jonathan's face. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes as the door swings open on the safe.

John pulls out as many clips as he can carry. Then he arms himself with more guns; sticking them in pockets, inside his pants, anywhere he can find a place. He's not going to let those aliens take all their guns.

Then he pulls out his dad's special grenades. They're attached to a belt that John latches around his waist.

The door to his father's den shudders mightily. The aliens on the other side are shouting at him, but he isn't listening. His heart rate is accelerating dramatically with each shake the door gives, and he knows he doesn't have a lot of time left.

Feeling armed to the teeth and yet still incredibly vulnerable, John sprints to his father's liquor cabinet, picking up an ancient moonshiner jug along the way. His father had made a collection of the jugs, and most of them were huge and unfilled. Johnny wants to change that. He begins pouring alcohol into the jugs as the aliens begin bashing on the door.

Each time an alien charges the door John feels a new wave of anxiety. It frequently makes him jump, making liquor spill everywhere but where it needs to go. By the time he's collected enough of the stuff, it's also saturated the carpet.

John says a small prayer of apology as he drags the now very-heavy jug across the room and right next to the door, along with another bottle of liquor. He situates the jug so it is out of sight. Then, for extra insurance, he places one of his father's grenades behind it.

Then he backs away slowly, letting the bottle of liquor pour out as he walks. He keeps this up until he's next to the window. He drops the liquor bottle and crouches behind his father's fancy couch for cover. Then he holds up his assault rifle and waits.

He doesn't have to wait long. The aliens break through the door and begin piling in two at a time. John downs the first two with ease. When the aliens realize he's both armed and at least preliminarily trained in how to kill, they begin diving for cover themselves. There isn't a lot around the entrance; his father had the good taste to face all of his furniture facing the door, so they're more toward the back and John's eager assault rifle.

John fires wildly into the crowd of aliens. It's apparent that they're better shots than he is. They're timing their shots to hear the breaks in his; he's just firing into the room randomly and ducking for cover before they have a chance to shoot him again.

Despite the fact that he's heard a few bodies drop, he knows he isn't going to win this fight. He can feel the fear flickering across him, giving him goosebumps and causing his hands to shake. His already novice shooting was starting to look downright pathetic.

Then comes the moment he's been waiting for: the thermal clip runs out of ammo. He feels his legs tense. If he doesn't do this right, he is going to go down with everyone else.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he pops the clip out of the assault rifle and lets it fall onto the liquor-soaked carpet.

He waits just a few moments to make sure the clip is sparking. As soon as he sees the first spark he leaps backwards and out of the second-story window.

As he careens thought the now-broken window, he wonders why he didn't think to break the window ahead of time, or at least open it. As it was, he covers his face and braces himself to hit the ground.

He hits the ground with even less grace than he cares to admit. He lands with a _whump!_, and he's pretty sure he feels a rib crack. He's never had a rib crack before; Johnny is pretty sure he's never broken a bone before.

The pain makes all the air rush out of him. His breath feels like it's splintering as he takes rasping breaths. He smells smoke. Before he can move out of the way, he hears an explosion, and instinctively reaches up to cover his head.

Debris from the upstairs den rains down on the boy. He can hear the surprised aliens in the house shouting as the entire place goes up in smoke. He can't believe his idea worked.

Jonathan crawls slowly out from underneath the debris. He takes deep breaths, and even cries out once or twice as his ribs protest mightily to the movement. He continues to crawl through the smoke and wreckage. He can hear shouting behind him, and he spurns himself into moving faster.

He can see them burning the woods his sisters had run for. He can't go that way. Johnny crawls in the opposite direction, toward the tiny pond behind their house. He stops and plays dead when aliens run past, but other than that he keeps going straight for the pond.

When he reaches his destination he pulls himself up behind a large boulder and takes stock of his injuries.

Well, he isn't too seriously hurt. He can still breathe. He isn't coughing blood. He figures if he can rest for a few minutes he will be able to stand.

But his ears are ringing. He can't hear very well. He had the wind knocked out of him when his house exploded. He thinks he's already spent a lot of his own energy.

But he's got to think. He has to find his sisters. None of them have ever been in so much danger before; not even that one time Kallie had been missing for four days.

If his sisters are smart, they will get out of the woods. They will go far, far away from the colony and hide out until help comes. Jo knows of an unused bunker beyond the outskirts of the colony; surely they will make their way there and stay low until someone comes to look for survivors. They can board up the windows and keep quiet. The aliens won't think to look that far away from the colony for other people. It is the perfect place for his sisters to be. They will be there.

Of course they will. Right?

But then, Kallie will want to call for help herself. Jo will want to look for survivors. And Satana will want to stay with her sisters.

Jonathan shakes his head. Of course his sisters won't do the smart thing. They are going to go straight through the middle of the fight. Chances are they're going to make their way for the Alliance base smack-dab in the middle of the colony.

Straight into alien hands.

Jonathan Shepard loves his sisters. He also hates their senses of chivalry. At least Johnny is armed to the teeth. He pulls up a quick memory of the colony, and the fastest way to the Alliance base.

The fastest way is through the roads, definitely. But they are alien-infested. He can also circle around and sneak up behind the base, but behind the base is a sheer cliff he will have to climb down, and he'll be open to attack during that time.

The only other option he knows of is to cut through the power plant. Jonathan remembers his father talking about it; there used to be a tunnel leading between the power plant and the Alliance base back when they were still building up the colony. Maybe, if he was lucky, the tunnel was still there.

**XXXXX**

Jonathan limps up to the power station, making sure to keep in the shadows and stay out of sight. It has taken him a lot of time to get here. He thinks he might have been hurt more than he thought. The sun is going down; soon it will be easier to stay hidden. But at the moment he is still a big, wounded target.

He holds his gun close to his chest and takes several deep breaths. His ribs are still screaming at him, and he is running out of energy. He is just lucky that he hasn't been caught by anymore aliens on his way here. Aiming at live targets is a lot harder than aiming at broken security droids.

Johnny takes a quick look inside the power plant main building. Bodies litter the ground. The sight nearly makes John lose whatever was left in his stomach. He _knows _a lot of the people in this building. Well, _knew_. He can't believe these aliens are just… killing them in cold blood. He doesn't know how he's going to get past all those bodies to the tunnel.

There are three aliens between him and where he thinks the tunnel is. And if he looks through the assault rifle scope… yes, that is definitely a hatch on the ground. If he can—

One of the aliens cries out and points toward him. He feels pain ripping through his shoulder and he falls backward. As he yells out, he only has enough time to grasp his shoulder before the three aliens are staring down at him.

They're saying something to him, but he doesn't know what they're saying. The three laugh at something, and one of them lifts his pistol and points it straight at John.

John closes his eyes. Then he hears a high-pitched humming and a voice from behind him. The four-eyed aliens in front of him all turn to look for the source of the noise.

"Get out of the way!"

John obeys instantly without knowing why. He rolls away from the aliens and the humming, then gets to his feet and runs. He hears an explosion behind him and the force knocks him forward and onto the ground again.

John groans as someone drags him up. In front of the teenager stands an older man with a wrinkled forehead, dark brown, balding hair, and a worried expression on his face.

John knows this man. He is Rigel Sternus, one of the workers in the power station. He is trying to say something to John, but his ears are still ringing and all he can hear is a very faint din.

"Johnny! Can you hear me?" He vaguely hears.

John manages to nod. He tries to reply but can't hear himself, so he raises his voice. "Yes! Yes I can hear you!"

Rigel slaps a hand over John's mouth and his eyes dart around quickly. "Shh!"

John stops talking.

Rigel drapes one of John's arms over his shoulders and drags him inside the main building. Ardently ignoring the bodies, he sits John down on a chair and begins looking him over. He holds John's arm up and pulls up his shirt. Rigel examines the bruising forming on John's ribcage. His omni-tool flares to life and John's ribcage feels a lot better.

"That won't fix the cracked ribs, but it'll make you feel better for a while." Rigel explains. Then he sits back with a sigh and runs a hand across his scalp. "Where are your parents? Your sisters?"

"Mom and Dad are—are…." John finds he can't finish his sentence. Pressure is building up behind his eyes, and he rubs them harshly. "My sisters ran for the woods right before they were lit on fire."

"Where do you think they were going?" Rigel asks as he presses on Shepard's shoulder experimentally.

Shepard hisses at the pain, but doesn't jerk his arm away. "I think they're trying to make it to the Alliance base."

Rigel gives a small snarl. The Alliance isn't too well thought of in the outer colonies, for some reason. John can never figure out why. The Alliance protects people, even the ones in the outer colonies.

"Still, I'm glad you're alive." John can hear his hero saying. "I haven't been able to find anyone since the batarians knocked out the power."

John frowns. He knows that word. That was a four-letter-word on the colony of Mindoir; always followed by eerie silences when someone makes the mistake of speaking the word. "Batarians? _Those _are batarians?"

"Well, yes. What did you think they were?"

"I didn't know." John replies. "And I can't ask them because I can't understand them."

Now it's Rigel's turn to frown. "What? That doesn't…" Then he shakes his head. "Frederick, always the cheap one. You don't have an updated omni-tool, do you?"

"None of us do." John replies, on the defensive. "The only one who cares about a quality omni-tool is Kallie, and she's constantly modifying hers."

Rigel makes a face and heads over to one of the corpses. John recognizes the man: he was Paul Rodgers, one of the first members of the colony. John goes to school with his son.

John _went _to school with his son, anyway.

Rigel kneels down and begins fiddling with the dead body. The sight makes Jonathan suddenly feels sick. He's been able to hold it together when he had to take charge and get his sisters out alive, but now that someone older and definitely more experienced has come along, John finds he can't think anymore. His mind is blank.

He turns his head and retches.

Rigel is patting his shoulder and telling him everything is going to be okay. "Here, put this on."

John holds out his arm and Rigel removes his current omni-tool and replaces it with the one taken from Paul Rodgers. A different kind of buzzing enters John's brain, and he shakes his head to try and shake it off.

"That'll be the translator starting to work." Rigel explains. "The buzzing stops eventually. But now you'll be able to hear what they're saying, and you can stay out of their way."

"But… this was Paul's…"

"Paul is dead, Jonathan." Rigel stresses. He shakes John's good shoulder and doesn't speak again until John looks at him. "And he's not going to need it anymore. We do. And what we need to do is get you to safety." Rigel reaches for the pistol he had strapped to his waist. "There have to be more people alive in the colony. Raiders didn't just come here to pillage and burn. They'll take prisoners."

Yes, Johnny remembers his parents talking about that. "Slaves."

"Yes." Rigel turns and points west. "So you head west, as far and as fast as you can, and you don't return until someone—a _human—_comes looking for you. I'm going to get into the colony and look for survivors." He nods to the hatch John has been eyeballing. "That service tunnel goes straight to the Alliance base."

John's blank mind jumps at this. "What? I'm going with you!"

Rigel makes sure his gun is loaded and stands. "That's a nice offer, kid, but you're hurt, and scared, and I don't want to see you hurt."

"My sisters are out there!" John stands too. "I can't just leave them."

"I'll make sure to find your sisters."

"_No._" John attempts to cross his arms but stops as his shoulder pulls sharply. The pain makes him angrier. "I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

Rigel groans. "This is a bad idea, kid."

"I don't care." John replies.

His adult friend stares it him for a long while before giving his answer. He rubs his head and stretches tiredly. "You cough up some of those grenades you have on you and I'll consider it; I used my last one saving your ass."

John nodded and handed over half of his grenades.

"Then let's get going. Keep your rifle loaded at all times; do not put it down for anything. If you see a batarian then shoot it before it shoots you."

Rigel pulls up the hatch and drops down. Jonathan follows quickly.

He hopes his sisters are okay.

**XXXXX**

"We're ready to head down, Captain Einer." Lieutenant-Commander David Anderson reports. He is standing in the bridge next to his captain, who is reading updates about the planet below.

Not that there is much to go on. Communications are still down, and none of their Alliance channels are working. The crew currently on the bridge is bustling back and forth, trying to fix the problem remotely. They aren't having much luck.

"Excellent." Captain Einer replies. "The sooner we get this problem fixed, the sooner we can get back to our route. Get your team down there and get to work."

Anderson nods, but doesn't move. "Sir, are you sure this is a simple communications problem?"

Einer narrows his eyes at Anderson. "Does something make you think different, L.C.?"

Well, Einer does appreciate truthfulness, and Anderson is never one for subtlety. "Nothing concrete, sir. Something just seems off about this mission."

And if Anderson's ever leaned anything, it's that he should always listen to his instincts. They've saved his life more time than he cares to count.

Einer seems to think it over. "It does feel right, does it? But we can't just at shadows. As far as we know, this is a simple communications problem."

A bit farther in front of them, the pilot jumps. The poor man looks visibly shaken. "Um! Captain?"

Einer and Anderson make their way over. "What is it?"

"I think someone's trying to send a message."

"You _think_?" Anderson asks. He leans over the console and checks it over.

"It's not directed at anyone. It's just… bouncing off the satellites. It's not going any farther than the next buoy. But it's a message."

"Well, find out what it is!" Captain Einer commands. "Maybe we can get some answers about what's going on."

The pilot begins pressing buttons and scanning satellites. "I've brought the message to us." The pilot frowns. "It's a live feed. Patching us in."

The screen at the head of the bridge lights up, and the faces of three bloodied, scared girls appear.

**XXXXX**

**Don't forget to vote for your favorite Shepard if you haven't already. :) Have a good weekend, all!**

**_Amme Moto_**


	6. Blind Run

**Chapter Six: Blind Run**

By the time Satana leads them to the correct sewer opening, Josephine Shepard notices that her sister Kallie's breathing has become deeper, and she is starting to shift her weight more onto herself again. Jo does not let go of her sister, even if she can feel Kallie trying to pull her arm away. After all, her ankle is still badly hurt, and even though her breathing has evened out some, she's still breathing erratically. Jo doesn't trust that her sister will make it out of the sewer alive.

Jo gives a little shiver. She's cold. She's wet. Her blonde hair is hanging in clumps around her head, like she is hearing dreadlocks. The clumps stretch down to pass her shoulders and dangle with large crimp down towards the end.

They come to a manhole in the sewer where Satana comes to a stop. She looks up the ladder leading to the metal grate and takes a deep breath.

"T-this is it." She whispers, her voice shaking. The sound resonates throughout the sewer. Jo winces. "This is as close as the sewers can take us to the Alliance base."

Jo looks her younger sister over. She doesn't seem to be in too much pain. Her shirt has holes burned into it, and the hemming is singed. Jo can see bright red patches on her sister's ribs and arm where her clothes had caught fire. If she looked close enough, she might be able to see blisters forming. She doesn't want to look too closely.

"Are you sure we want to do this?" Satana asks, looking back at Jo and reaching out to touch Kallie. "We _might _be safe down here. We could find a safe spot and bunker down."

Jo considers the idea. It would be so easy to keep traversing the sewers, to find a relatively hidden place to hold up and wait for things to blow over.

But…. "Kallie is hurt. We need to get her to a medic, or at least a place with supplies."

Satana nods. She stares up at the manhole like it is one of the last things she wants to touch. Jo knows her little sister is scared. Hell, Jo is scared. Her knees are shaking, and the only reason she hasn't collapsed onto the floor yes is because her twin sister needs her to keep standing. Her arm is sending stabbing pains up and through her shoulder, reminding her of those… things… that had attacked them earlier, and she gives a shudder.

"We can _do _this." Jo reassures her sister. She has this terrible feeling she's reassuring herself, too. "Which direction is the Alliance base from here?"

Satana frowns in thought before pointing in a seemingly random direction. "Just west of here." She replies. "We're in the center of the colony. The tavern is to the north; beside it is that kiosk that sells handmade jewelry."

The Pattersons' jewelry kiosk. Jo knows Laura and Diane Patterson, as well as their son Simon. Jo and Kallie go to school with him. He is going out with the Rodriguez girl in the class below theirs, who has buck teeth and wants to spend her life farming on the colony.

She hopes they are okay.

"Take this." Jo hands Satana the gun. Satana stares at it blankly. Jo can see her sister's hands shaking. "When we open the manhole to get out, I'll have to drag Kallie along with us. I'm the least hurt, and I'm stronger than you."

Satana hold the gun out at arm-length. Her voice shakes when she speaks, and Jo can see her sister snarl at herself. "B-but Jo, I don't know how to use this!"

There's nothing Jo can reply with. She doesn't know how to use it either. Their brother does, but chances are he's already dead.

_Nonsense. Don't think about that._

Kallie also knows how to use it. She's taken out at least a _few _of the aliens and their mutant dogs. But Kallie is in no shape for anything. Jo is afraid if she lets go of her sister, Kallie would just plummet to the ground and they might not get her back up again.

"You point and shoot." Jo tries to put on a brave face. She doesn't think it's working. "It can't be _that _hard."

Kallie shudders beside her and she takes a ragged breath. She holds her head up to look at Satana. "S-s-squeeze. Don't… don't pull."

Satana frowns. "What?"

Jo nudges her sister in an attempt to prod her on. Kallie closes her eyes and focuses on breathing for a moment. "Aim t-to the left. On—only half a clip. Six shots."

Jo feels a chill go down her spine. Only six shots left to their defense. She can see her younger sister's eyes widen, and in the dim light she thinks she sees her pale and turn a green tinge.

Kallie sees it too. She reaches out with the arm Jo doesn't have draped over her shoulders. Jo sees her red-headed sister cringe as she lifts the arm with the bullet in it, but she grasps the trembling gun and pulls it away from her sister. She pulls her good arm away from Jo and stands on her own.

Jo gasps as her sister sways unsteadily on her feet. Kallie clutches her chest for a moment, shakes her head blearily and wipes at a bead of blood trickling down her arm.

"I'll d-do it." She wheezes. "You… you two r-r-run."

Satana's fearful look turns indignant as she snatches the gun back. "Not a chance. We're doing what Jo said." Kallie sways dangerously, so Jo leans her back and drapes her arm back around her shoulders. "If you can do it, I can do it."

"We're _stalling_." Jo stresses. "I'll go up ahead and see wait for an opening." Jo trains her eye and on younger sister. "As soon as I get up and out, you will help Kallie up the ladder as quick as you can. I want you up right behind her."

Satana nods attentively.

"Kallie and I are going to head straight for the Alliance base. I want you on our heels. _Do not _use the gun unless someone notices us." Jo takes a shaky breath. "We can't stop for anything. Are you ready?"

What a stupid question. Like any of them are prepared to do something like this.

Jo starts up the ladder, making sure Kallie is securely positioned beneath her, and pushes up on the manhole. It won't budge. The damn thing is heavier than it looks. She closes her eyes and brings up what vestiges of biotic power she's saved up since the attack farther along the sewers and _pushes_.

Using biotics for Jo has always been a good experience. Whenever Jo made it to the Alliance base for practice with some of the officers, she would spend her time attempting to move objects around the designated room with her biotic abilities. The triggering of her biotics always sends a calming wave through her veins, and she finds herself thinking clearer. A tingling sensation resonates from her chest and flows out of her fingers.

That was not the case this time. Jo had drained herself as completely as she had ever done before when she fended the dogs off from herself and her sister, and she hadn't had a lot of time to recuperate. As she uses her biotics to help her remove the manhole, it rips through her chest as if someone is punching her. It jars through her fingers and smashes into the manhole, blowing it off of its hinges and into the air; the sound of it whistling through the air is largely ignored as Jo goes into sensory overload.

All in the span of a few seconds, Jo takes a look around and tries to assimilate all that she's seeing, hearing, and smelling. The most prominent sound is the sound is _fire_. The crackling noises are deafening in their intensity. Smoke fills the air, and Jo's line of sight is dimmed by thick clouds of noxious fumes. Beyond the sewer's manhole, a loud cracking noise makes her jump, and she can tell that one of the nearby temporary buildings has collapsed. A nauseating aroma of burning flesh and wood mixes in with the night air, and it takes Jo a moment to tamp down her already-overused gag reflex.

What scares her the most, however, is the screaming. Just underneath the sound of fire destroying the main hub of the colony, a roaring din of screaming men, women, and children surrounds the area. Jo can see feet bolting across the center of the colony as people panic and scatter. She can also see feet traveling in groups, uniformly gathering up humans like sheep and corralling them into trapped enclosures.

An arm reaches down and drags Jo out of the sewer by her throat. She is hanging in the air and she is roughly shaken by an angry-sounding alien.

Jo is paralyzed with fear. She stares at the beige, four-eyed alien snarling at her and can't figure out why she can't move. The alien is shaking her again; she can feel her teeth rattling around in her head. She bites her tongue roughly and the pain startles her into action.

She tries to shriek, but her throat is closed off, and she's finding it hard to breathe. Her hands clutch at the strong ones holding her up and her legs flail uselessly. It's getting harder to think, so she struggles more in the hopes of something happening.

A whoosh of air brushes past Jo's face and a loud _clang! _rings through her ears, surprising her into closing her mouth. The manhole she blew open has finally landed, only a few feet away from where the alien is holding her. The alien jumps in surprise and looks back.

Jo rams her foot into the alien's stomach as hard as she can. The four-eyed monster drops her and doubles over in pain. Jo lets out a gasping breath and coughs, dragging in smoke-addled air as if she's never taken a breath in her life. Before Jo can think twice, she shoves at the alien as hard as she can, toppling him over. She kicks him one more time for good measure then turns back to the manhole.

Kallie is already halfway out of the sewer and looks to be struggling to help her sister. Jo drags her sister the rest of the way out and tries to support her.

"Are y-you okay?" Kallie asks, having to raise her voice to be heard over the roar of panic around them. "What… happened?"

Jo coughs roughly and clutches at her throat. "I'm fine." She croaks. Speaking hurts. She can hear herself, and she sounds like she's been smoking her father's cigars. The smoke from the burning colony around them is making her eyes hurt. Her foot is throbbing from the two times she kicked the alien; she thinks he might be armored. She's pretty sure she was _this close _to dying at the hands of a four-eyed alien.

She _really _wants to cry right now. But Satana is tearing out of the sewer, and Jo shoves down her rising terror and forces herself to exude the calm she's been trying to present all night.

"Let's go." Jo rasps, trying to clear her throat to sound more normal. "Run!"

Jo and Kallie take off at the same time, carrying each other across the ruins of their home and toward the Alliance base. They both look back frequently to make sure Satana is right on their heels. Their little sister is always close by, looking around and checking for any aggressors.

The good news is that the aliens seem too preoccupied with the rest of the colony to notice the three wounded girls stumbling toward what they consider to be their salvation. The bad news is that as they run, the three girls are forced to watch their entire colony become rounded up or slaughtered. More than once Jo would see someone she went to school with get picked up and thrown into a pen with other colonists, or one of the adults she'd grown up knowing would be shot down, or even once one of the Alliance officers from the base would get overpowered and murdered before doing much good. A few times Jo or Kallie would see these things and feel themselves tug away from the group to try and help. When this happens, the other two would yank the straying sister back into place and keep going.

Satana never seems to have trouble keeping with the objective. Jo has to admire that in her sister; she is always so focused on the task at hand. Namely: making a straight run for the base, and not stopping to help anyone. After all, all three sisters are wounded, and none of them are in a fit state to help. Satana never strays from the group. She keeps her two sisters focused on the task and watches out for danger.

Still, that doesn't make the horrific, dying screams of Jo's colony home sound any less nightmarish. She closes her eyes for a hard second to push back blinding tears and redoubles her efforts to see her sisters to safety.

They make it to the Alliance base doors and Jo lets out a ragged sigh of relief. The door has been mangled, it reels back and forth as if it wants to close but is jammed somehow, and the base beyond the door is nothing but a pitch black mass of darkness, but that honestly doesn't faze her at this point. She turns back to her sister Satana to tell her to go through first with the gun when she sees an alien rushing toward them.

Jo only gets out half a cry before Satana whirls around and sees the alien, too. She lifts up the gun and fires in a knee-jerk reaction of fear.

_Five shots left._

The shot grazes the alien's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks long enough for him to growl something menacing and continue his advance.

Satana fires again. This shot doesn't even hit him, and he doesn't stop running for the three. Jo feels Kallie tense and sees her sister's omnitool flare to life.

Satana fires one more time in a last-ditch effort to stop him. It hits the alien in his ribs and he goes down. He struggles to stand again, and when he decides he can't, he instead reaches for his pistol.

Kallie reaches out and grabs Satana by the back of her shirt. Then, with a pained cry, she flings Satana through the busted door and into the base. The alien starts firing as Jo pushes Kallie through the entrance and goes inside herself.

Kallie is at the door control panel beside the entrance. She flashes it with her omnitool and sparks flash wildly into her sister's face. Kallie jumps back and falls to the floor as she loses her balance.

Whatever her sister did to the door worked: it lurches roughly once then slams shut with a loud whine. The three are left in complete darkness.

There is silence for a few moments as each sister works to recuperate from that terrible run. Jo can still hear muffled screams and gunfire in the world outside, but the quiet inside the Alliance base—which usually bustles with interaction and work—is unsettling.

After a moment Jo can hear someone heaving. She can also hear the rapid, ragged breathing that Jo has learned to associate with hyperventilation.

She needs to check on her sisters. "Is everyone okay?"

"No." Satana groans. "I just threw up. And I think Kallie is having a heart attack."

"Kallie, where are you?" Jo asks the darkness. In response, Kallie's omnitool flashes to life, and the corridor the three sisters have hidden out in is now illuminated in a dull orange light.

All three sisters let out a tired yell and reel backward from the sight. The hallway they've entered is littered with bodies, both human and alien. When Kallie fell, she landed just to the side of one of the human bodies. It stared blankly at her as she wheeled backward and propelled herself away from the corpse.

Well, Jo thinks, at least now they know why there aren't any aliens inside the base. Everyone inside is probably already dead. Hell, this is probably the first place that was hit.

Jo reaches down and hauls her sister up; gripping her tightly to make sure she won't go down again. Her sister's breathing gets faster and her knees are shaking. She's returning to the state they found her in inside the sewers.

"Kallie, is that door secure?" Satana asks, staring at the door they threw themselves through to get here.

Kallie nods. She tries to speak but clutches a hand to her chest tightly.

"Then we need to keep moving." Jo replies. "We can't stay here. Follow me."

Jo knows the Alliance base better than her sisters. She goes to study biotics more often than the other two. In fact, out of all four siblings, Jo is the one who spends most of her time up at the Alliance base. She's been inside most of it before, and knows exactly where she's going. She pulls her sister down a different corridor, treading lightly over the bodies of fallen Alliance officers, and heads for the medbay. She thinks she does a very good job of not being sick as she goes.

Satana, on the other hand, is having a harder time keeping up. She's never seen a dead body before (technically, none of them have) and all in the span of a few hours she's shot someone and walked through an entire hallway of dead bodies. They have to stop every now and again to allow Satana enough time to regain control over her stomach.

Kallie is doing good to keep breathing. Her eyes are glazed over, and Jo's not too sure her sister can see anything herself. There are red, puffy patches around her face where the door's sparks hit her, but they don't look serious. Jo can fix her sister up with some medigel, if they can just _find some_.

Finally Jo turns a corner and pulls her sister into the medbay. She ignores the bodies and bloodstains littering the room and instead drags Kallie to stand next to the medical table.

"Satana, see if you can turn some lights on."

She hears her sister break from the group to inspect the room. Jo sets Kallie onto the medical table and looks her over in the dim orange light.

Kallie's arm is bleeding freely again. The strip of Jo's shirt used to bandage it is soaked through and pretty much useless now. Kallie is decidedly paler than she was before, but Jo can't tell if that's from the different lighting, or the blood loss, or lack of oxygen, or a mix of all three. Her sister's eyes dart around the room, trying to see in the dim lighting. Her breathing accelerates and Jo can feel her sister grip her arm and squeeze tightly.

"Well, I'm no doctor, but I think I can ease some of this at least." She tells her sister. Her twin nods uneasily in front of her. Jo takes off the makeshift-bandage and looks for real gauze.

"Found it!" Satana calls. The lights sputter on and flicker. Jo can see the bodies much more clearly now. She knows some of them. Some of them are her friends, and now they're dead. Of course, some of them are also terrifying aliens that have decided that burning their peaceful colony to the ground is a great idea. She doesn't feel as bad about seeing those corpses on the ground.

Still, Jo has to push down her nausea. Kallie has closed her eyes and turned green, and Satana recoils from a body a few feet from her. Jo needs to be the strong one in this situation. Someone needs to keep a clear head.

"We need to find some medigel." She states as she pulls a length of bandage out of a cabinet. "Satana, start checking the medstations."

Her little sister stands uneasily, brushes her black hair out of her face, and steps over to a row of cabinets. Kallie pulls her leg up onto the table and begins softly kneading at her ankle. She lends Jo her arm, though, when Jo tugs on it. Jo beings to patch up her sister's arm as best as she can.

"All of these are empty!" Satana calls as she checks the last one in sight. She reaches her hand inside to see if any happen to be stuck, but comes out empty-handed. "There's nothing here."

"That doesn't make sense. There _has _to be." Jo is starting to get worried. "This place is usually filled to the brim with medigel."

Satana shrugs, coming back over to the table to her sisters. "Maybe the aliens took it all when they raided the place?"

Jo thinks about it. Sure, the aliens could have taken the medigel with them. It looks like there was a pretty bad fight in the Alliance base, and they might have been injured enough to take the medigel with them and heal as they go.

But they can't have scoured the whole base and taken _all _of it. Jo needs that medigel for her sisters, and she refuses to believe that there isn't a drop left in the base.

"This isn't the only room with medigel." Jo decides. "There are stations lining the walls throughout the whole base, as well and a storage room nearer to the back. We'll find some."

"I have medigel."

Kallie pulls in an alarmed gasp and tries to lurch backward. Jo grabs onto her sister to keep her balanced and whirls around to meet the extra occupant of the room. Satana yells out and points the gun toward the door.

There is an Alliance-issue assault rifle staring back at them. The mystery assailant is just beyond the light from the medbay, making identification impossible. Jo steps in front of her wounded sister protectively, but she can see Kallie's omnitool glow bright orange again.

"Who are you?" Satana calls. Jo can hear her voice shaking. "Come into the light."

The figure takes three steps into the room, rifle still drawn, and glances at the three girls. Jo can see the woman now; an average-height woman with chocolate hair tied in a tight bun. In many places her hair frizzes out of place and dangles down to below her shoulders. Her serious brown eyes inspect them cautiously as she enters.

Jo knows the woman. She is one of Jo's friends at the base; the one who would stand watch sometimes when Jo was practicing a new biotic technique. She lets out a cry of disbelief. "Doctor Nazim?"

The assault rifle is now focused on Jo as the doctor checks her out. Jo finds herself unnerved as she stares down the intimidating weapon. She's never been on this side of an Alliance weapon before. She wasn't sure she liked it.

Finally recognition spreads across the doctor's face. Her eyes widen and she drops her gun. Jo notices that Satana's weapon also falls as the Doctor takes on a less aggressive stance. "_Josephine_? Good gods, Jo. What are you _doing _here?"

"Trying to find help." Jo explains. She takes a deep breath and suddenly finds that she can't stop pouring out their troubles. "Our parents are dead. John probably is, too. Kallie is hurt, and can't breathe well. Satana's been set on fire and bitten by dogs."

Doctor Nazim comes forward immediately to examine Kallie. The closer she gets to Kallie, the more Kallie shrinks into her sister. Her breathing becomes more pronounced and she shuts her eyes tightly.

Jo turns to her sister and nudges her. "Kallie, you have to let the doctor help you. She's on our side." Kallie doesn't move. "Kallie, _please_. She can help us."

"How long has she been like this?" Nazim asks.

"We found her like this about twenty minutes ago. She got better, and then worse again just as we got here." Satana replies. She swallows nervously and stares at her sister. "Is she going to die?"

The doctor shakes her head. "Not from an anxiety attack, no, but coupled with the blood loss I'm seeing she's likely to pass out any minute."

Right. That can't happen. Jo tugs at her sister's hair to gain her attention. "Kallie, listen to me. You've got to let the doctor look at you so you don't pass out. It'll make it harder for us to move around if we have to carry you, too."

Kallie looks at the doctor anxiously for a moment, then nods her consent. The doctor doesn't need any other permission; she closes the distance between herself and her patient and sets to work.

As she is prodding at their sister's ankle, she begins her own story. "The base is the first place the batarians hit."

"Batarians?" Satana cocks her head and frowns. She leans over and places a reassuring hand on Kallie, who is cringing from the Doctor's nudging. "Are they the aliens or the mutant dogs?"

"The batarians are the aliens. The _mutant dogs _are called varren." Nazim explains. She sets Kallie's ankle on the table and her arm glows orange. Her omnitool flares up, and Jo can hear the sound of medigel being administered. "They scrambled our communications and hit us before we knew our comm. links were down. Once they had the base neutralized, they spread out to the colony."

She moves on to Kallie's arm. She removes the bandage and sets it aside. "Nice field dress, by the way."

Jo knows they're in a whole lot of trouble, and that she's talking about how she fixed the bullet hole in her sister's arm, but she can't help but feel a small glint of pride at her words.

"I was away on recon at the outskirts of the colony when the strike hit. By the time we got back to the base, there was nothing we could do for anyone inside." She applies medigel to her sister's arm and rebandages it. Kallie lets out a whine at one point, but otherwise remains silent. "Our group has been trying to get the comm. link back up so we can contact the nearest Alliance ship. We're not having much luck, though.

"Two of our group are in a room not far from here, trying to get the comm. link working again. Another and I split up, looking for survivors. I guess it's good that I came along when I did."

The doctor opens a metallic cabinet next to the medtable and pulls out a tiny bottle of liquid and a syringe. She fills the syringe with the liquid and then holds it up for Kallie to see. "I need to inject you with this. It's something that'll help you breathe better." The doctor winces. "I'd like to give you a relaxant, too, but under the circumstances I really shouldn't. This is going to sting, but after a few seconds you'll be breathing better."

Kallie closes her eyes and looks away as Doctor Nazim injects her with the medicine. After a few moments, Kallie's breathing slows noticeably and she opens her eyes, looking around.

"Are you all right, Kallie?" Satana asks.

Kallie takes a deep breath as slowly as possible. "Yeah. I'm a lot better now."

Jo lets out a sigh of relief and can feel tears welling up in her eyes. She hugs her sister tightly, and finds herself crying as she feels her sister hug her back.

"Thank you, doctor." Satana says from behind them. "We weren't sure what we were supposed to do about her."

"She was having an anxiety attack." The doctor explains. "It's not deadly in and of itself, but if you're saying the three of your made your way through the battlefield outside with her like this, then she's been under a _lot _of strain. I'm impressed she made it here without passing out."

Kallie snorts. "I almost didn't. Once I closed the front door to the base everything started getting fuzzy."

The doctor frowns. "The front door is jammed. There's no way it could close. We left it alone because the batarians were under the impression that no one was inside anymore. How did you do get it to close?"

Jo's red-headed sister shrugs. "I hacked it, sort of. When I used to sneak out of the house at night and the doors were bolted shut and our father had hidden the omnigel, I'd tell our doors that they were really vents. The mechanical configuration for both is very similar, so it was easy to do. After that, I would tell them that the temperature inside the house was hotter than it should be. They opened instantly to compensate."

There is silence for a moment as the other three catch up with the logic. "And you did that with the Alliance door? You told it it was a vent?" Jo asks. "So why did it slam shut so tightly?"

She frowns as she tries to remember. "I think I was having trouble getting the door to close. Our entire house is hooked up to a computer system that monitors the house for irregularities. When I snuck out, I was really telling the _motherboard _that the doors were vents.

"But I couldn't find a main computer. Probably because the entire base was powered down, but I wasn't thinking too clearly at the moment. So instead, I told it my omnitool was the motherboard and _then _told the door it was a vent. I think the proximity to the motherboard gave it too much power, and both the door and my omnitool went haywire." She took a look at her omnitool cautiously. "I hope I didn't do it any lasting damage."

Doctor Nazim is staring at Kallie oddly. "You did all of that? How did you know to do that?"

Kallie shrugs again, so Satana answers for her. "Kallie is good at that. She finds a problem, and if she can't fix it, she finds a way around it."

The doctor _hums_. "All three of you are impressive, to be able to make it here on your own." She looks over the three of them and gives a small, hopeful smile. "Maybe you can help us."

**XXXXX**

**Please vote for your favorite Shepard! :D Also have a good week!**

**P.S., for clarification's sake, this is NOT the end of the story. Only one Shepard makes it out. Which one it is depends on the voters. Or I might do individual chapters of what would happen if each of them survives in their own story, since I write stories for all four Shepards anyway. But this story is IN NO WAY done.**

_**Amme Moto**_


	7. Call

**Running As Fast As I Can**

**Chapter Seven: Call**

Kalisee Shepard can breathe again. She can walk without blinding pain shooting through her leg. And her arm has stopped bleeding. She can feel the bracing panic receding into the back of her mind, trying to push forward again as she tries to come to terms with all that is happening.

As she follows her sisters and the doctor through the dim and bloody hallways of what used to be the Alliance base, she tries as hard as she can to not look at anything. At one point she trips over what she knows is a body. But she ignores it. She has to ignore it. If she acknowledges any of her surroundings, she knows she's going to feel her throat close up and her chest tighten. She can feel it trying to creep back.

The panic attack took Kallie by surprise, she admits. She's never had one before. Granted, she's never seen her parents die, her house catch fire, her sisters get attacked by varren, and strange aliens called _batarians _try to kill them before.

_Don't think about that, don't think about that, don't think about that—_

Kallie's mind automatically switches off, and she focuses instead on moving steadily forward and keeping up with Doctor Nazim. The doctor has said that Kallie and her sisters can help her. They can't do that if her throat is closed and her pulse is going wild. She needs to keep her calm so she can get her sisters out alive. And then she can go back and look for her brother.

Or her brother's body.

The doctor rounds a corner and hustles her two sisters into a brightly lit room. Kallie follows behind very quickly, not wanting to be left alone in a hallway full of bloodied bodies.

"Okay, boys." Doctor Nazim calls as she enters the room, her hands each gripping one of her sisters' shoulders. Not wanting to be left vulnerable, Kallie stands behind the doctor and pokes her head out nervously. "These are the resources I've found."

Kallie can see two men inside the room they've been led to; one watching the door ardently and the other stuck halfway inside the giant computer on the other side of the room. One of them ignores their entrance, save for a small glance—Kallie thinks he's only checking to make sure they aren't batarians—before turning back to his work. The other whirls around and narrows his eyes at them.

"Ma'am, our only resources against an entire batarian raiding party are a couple of kids?"

Doctor Nazim snorts, and reaches back to pull Kallie along further into the room. "What should I say? The batarians took all of the useful items. I found these three inside the medbay, looking for supplies."

Then the doctor turns to the three girls and points to the suspicious man. His arms are folded and his dark brown eyes inspect the three thoughtfully. "This is Corporal Warner." They receive a nod from the corporal as the doctor turns her finger toward the busy man. "And this is Private Jamison."

Private Jamison raises a hand in greeting before reaching for a different tool. Kallie can see sparks fly out of the console.

"Where is Private Pollard?"

"Here, ma'am!" Kallie gasps loudly and jumps to the side as something brushes past her. Her chest takes the surprised opportunity to constrict again, and her lungs try to seize up.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She can feel someone's hands on her face, and can hear someone speaking to her. She can't hear them. The thought makes her feel worse. Suddenly, she feels someone forcing her head between her knees and holding her there. It feels oddly better, and her breathing improves. She fills her lungs with at much oxygen as she can before focusing on the voice.

"Can you hear me?" Says the voice. "Take deep breaths and try to calm down. No one here is going to hurt you."

After a minute Kallie thinks she's stamped the panic back down again. She opens her eyes and stands back up. Her sisters look at her with a mixture of concern and horrification in their faces. She can see Satana shaking slightly. Doctor Nazim takes her hands off of the redhead and leans back to inspect her.

"Are you all right?" The doctor asks, looking down at her omnitool and pressing a few buttons. Kallie gets the eerie sensation of being scanned and stands as still as possible.

"I'm fine." Kallie states quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Of course not." The doctor replies before Kallie can even finish. "We're all in a tough situation here, and you were just surprised. Nothing to be ashamed of."

That doesn't help. Kallie can still feel her cheeks turning red.

"What's wrong with munchkin number three?" Corporal Warner inquires, staring pointedly at Kallie.

Satana answers before Doctor Nazim can, glaring at the corporal and standing next to her sister protectively. "Nothing a good night's sleep and a shower can't fix."

That gets a laugh out of the man. He finally uncrosses his arms and runs a hand through his dark hair. "I like this one."

Doctor Nazim rolls her eyes. "I'm glad you approve." Then she turns to the newest arrival—a short man with curly black hair—and points him out. "This is Private Pollard."

The private scratches the back of his head and nods apologetically at Kallie. "I'm sorry for scaring you. Are you all right?"

Kallie nods in reply.

"Doctor, you said we could help you?" Jo asks loudly. She steps to the other side of Kallie and places herself in between Private Pollard and her sister.

This seems to animate the doctor. "Yes." She makes her way toward Private Jamison and kicks his foot. "The Private here is trying to fix the communications system, and isn't getting anywhere."

"Hey!" The Private calls from his position underneath the computer. "With all due respect, ma'am, I'm trying my best."

"Yeah?" Doctor Nazim swings a finger around to point squarely at Kallie. "This girl managed to close the front door in the middle of an anxiety attack."

Both Privates and the Corporal freeze and slowly turn to look at Kallie.

She can feel her breathing speed up again under such scrutiny. She resists the urge to flee and instead stares back wearily.

Doctor Nazim crouches down and places a hand on Kallie's shoulder reassuringly. "Miss Shepard, do you think you can help us get our communications back online? If we can call for help, we can save everyone."

Kallie thinks about it. "But… I've never worked on military-grade communications before."

"It's the same thing as civilian tech, really." Private Jamison pipes up. "It's just more expensive and sounds fancier." He holds out his hand to the uncertain teenager and waits. "Any help you can give might be able to help us stop this attack."

Stop the attack? That's what Kallie wanted to do in the first place, before the anxiety attack took hold of her. She still wants to, really. And according to everyone, she's the only one who might remotely know what to do.

She takes a last, deep breath, shoving her rising fear away from her mind and takes the Private's hand.

"Show me what we're looking at."

Doctor Nazim sends Corporal Warner and Private Pollard to do another sweep of the area, in case they'd overlooked someone or something, and leads Kallie over to the console.

Kallie can feel her sisters close behind her, and they settle into place as she is made comfortable in front of the broken computer.

The doctor takes a quick look at Satana, who is still holding the pistol tightly in her hand, and stops.

"I'm going to need your firearm."

The reaction is instant. Kallie recoils in front of her youngest sister, followed by her blonde look-alike. Satana backs up and clutches to her pistol even more.

"Not a chance, ma'am." She snarls.

"This is not up for debate." The doctor sternly replies. She tries to be gentler in her persuasion. "You do not have the training necessary to use that weapon properly. You are more likely to hurt yourself than you are to do damage to anything else."

"That gun is all we have left." Jo answers, keeping in front of Satana. "It only has a few more shots left in it, anyway."

"Three." Kallie mutters. Then she clears her throat and speaks louder. "We can get Satana a holster for it, so she's not constantly gripping it. Then you can show her how to get to it in a hurry if she needs to."

The doctor crosses her arms and frowns in thought. She is considering it.

Satana takes the reigns. "We'd rather be sparsely armed than not armed at all. If we get split up…."

"That _won't_ happen. I promise you that." Doctor Nazim cuts in. "However, if it will make the three of you feel safer, I will allow one of you to keep hold of it. We can find you a holster."

Kallie can feel herself smile in relief, just as she sees Jo relax and Satana slacken her grip on the pistol. "Thank you, ma'am."

**XXXXX**

Ten minutes in and Kallie knows she's way out of her depth.

None of this looks anything like anything she's ever done. The most communications work she's done is with her security droid, and that poor thing had been disintegrated minutes after being completed. She'd run tests on him before, seeing how far she could be away from him while still getting sensory information from him, but that work was still preliminary, and she certainly hadn't gone far enough to reach _space_.

Besides, none of this looks too badly messed up.

Well, of course the tech was disrupted; there are wires cut and broken levers, but Kallie's basic knowledge of comm. link systems and Private Jamison's passable tech skills, the two of them were able to mend the console enough to turn the monitor on.

But they still couldn't get a connection to any military ships.

"I don't understand!" Jamison thumps the table with a hand, startling Kallie out of her thoughts. She gasps involuntarily and jerks her head around, looking for any sign of a batarian.

Her two sisters also look around. They are standing very close to their sister, almost protectively close, and look as if they'll snap at anyone who comes close enough. Satana's fingers twitch toward the pistol now strapped to her waist. Jo, on the other hand, is being looked after by Doctor Nazim, who is doing her best to combat the girl's drain on her biotics. She turns and glares at the Private menacingly.

Private Jamison shrugs sheepishly. "Sorry."

"What's the problem?" The doctor asks.

"We've fixed it, ma'am. Everything is working. The computer has checked the Alliance satellites for damage, and they're still in working condition. But we can't get a signal out."

"What?" The doctor raises an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"In all honesty, ma'am, I have no idea. This is not my area of expertise." The Private shakes his head. "I guess, if the satellites were damaged, the Alliance would send out someone immediately to fix them. Maybe they're trying to not attract attention?"

Jo squeezes her sister's shoulder encouragingly. "Kallie? What do you think?"

Kallie thinks that she's being watched much too often. All four sets of eyes have now turned onto her and are watching her intently.

"Umm… I…." She can feel herself start to shake. _I'm all right, _she tells herself. _Just take a good breath and say what you think._

Her second try is more successful. "I think the batarians might be blocking any signals from passing beyond our own satellite links."

"Explain."

Aah, this Kallie could do without fear of repercussion. She opened a screen on her omnitool—a spiffy new application that she'd saved up credits for for months before being able to afford it—and began drawing on her new tablet screen.

"Well, with the droid I was making, the comm. system I set up worked through a series of comm. buoys throughout the colony, kind of like satellites. I could check this system from two ways: inside, via my own omnitool, to check for damage to individual buoys, and outside, via any other system, to see if there was a break in the buoy message circuit."

She drew this out on her omnitool as best as she could, ignoring the tingling feeling coursing through her fingers. She had just lost a lot of blood, and holding her arm still in midair must of course be tiring.

"I think this might—_might_—be close to the same thing. We can ask the computer to check each satellite used by the colony, but that would be too much work for the Alliance itself, so they can only see random breaks in the system; like if the planet were completely cut off, then there must be something the matter with the comms.

"To keep the Alliance from figuring out that we are under attack, the batarians have left the satellites alone completely. There is not a circuit break, nor is there a faulty machine. They're just blocking our long-range signals."

"But the Alliance can see that, too. They'd know if we couldn't get any word out at all." The Private argues.

"But comms. are always being disrupted on Mindoir. The plant life here grows so quickly and wildly that we can't stop it a lot of the time." Jo cuts in. "So they'll eventually send in a team to fix the problem, but they'll take their time."

"What can we do?" Satana asks. "If we can't get the word out that we're trapped here, what's our next move?"

"We could hack into a satellite and bring it down ourselves. That would bring the Alliance running." Jo suggests. She leans over Kallie's shoulder to inspect the image drawn.

Kallie can't help but laugh at that; her laugh quickly turns into a wheeze. "And who would hack that? Or are you proficient in hacking past military-grade firewalls and omniscramblers?"

"I agree with Kallie." The doctor states. "The damage would not only be extensive, but it would definitely destroy whatever chance we have at gaining someone's attention. We have to try and get the word out that we're in trouble. Even if it's just a short blip on the screen."

Kallie feels her eyebrows rise before she finishes her thought. "A blip?"

"…Yes, a small, nearly insignificant bump in information." The doctor reiterates. "Why? Do you have an idea?"

"I don't know." Kallie shuts off her omnitool, cooling her hand down immensely, and begins to fiddle with the communications console in front of her. "Just a thought. Maybe they didn't think of everything. Maybe they didn't think of a blip."

"What?"

"Just say what you're thinking, Kallie. We'll translate if we need to." Jo encourages. The light-heartedness of the joke manages to release some of the tension in the room.

"They've blocked long-range communications. But what about short-range? There's only the one colony on Mindoir at the moment; we technically have no one close enough to call for help that would classify as short-ranged. Maybe they didn't bother shutting off short-ranged communications."

"And you think those can help us?"

Kallie is gaining confidence in her theory now. "They certainly can't hurt. If we have access, I can maybe amplify the strength of it to send it out to the satellites." She frowns as she remembers her one caveat with this plan. "It wouldn't be able to go farther; it would only be able to bounce back and forth between them. And worse still, it would be a general signal, not Alliance-specific."

"Meaning anyone would be able to pick it up." Satana translates.

"Basically." Kallie tries not to think about it. She knows she's failed when she feels her breath speeding up. "There's a much more likely chance that the signal is picked up by a batarian ship patrolling the outskirts of Mindoir's atmosphere than a passing Alliance vessel. The Alliance ship would have to be in the vicinity in the first place, looking at Mindoir itself, and would have to be scanning the colony at the moment that our signal passes over it."

This doesn't seem like a good idea anymore. "It's too risky. I can think of something else. What if we—"

"No, that is an excellent idea." The doctor interrupts Kallie before she can start on a rambling new idea that everyone knew would head nowhere. Doctor Nazim brushes her dark hair into some semblance of a ponytail and rubs her chin thoughtfully. "And it seems our best bet. How can we get it started?"

"There's another computer on the base that deals with short-range messages." Jamison adds, taking a quick peek out the door and returning when nothing jumps out at him. "It's pretty far from here, but I think we can make it there with minimal damage to anyone."

"Excellent. I will take the girls to it and see what we can do. Private, stay here and keep an eye on this console. When Corporal Warner and Private Pollard return, all of you return to our location." The doctor began packing her medical kit into her bag and cinched it up. Private Jamison salutes his superior and stands guard at the door.

"Shepards, let's go."

Jo grasps at both Kallie's and Satana's hands and drags them back through the Alliance Base.

**XXXXX**

The trek to the other side of the base is a short one. Doctor Nazim insists on going first, assault rifle at the ready, and leads the three girls through the maze of bodies. Now with a chance to relax and not be terrified of dying with every breath, Kallie finds she can navigate through the hallways without as much trouble. She of course still feels the urge to lose what little she has left in her stomach, but she does not feel the crushing tightness around her chest.

Her arm feels tight, as if she's burned it, but she attributes that to being recently shot and healed. She flexes her arms experimentally, momentarily forgetting that that hand is being held by her sister, and gains a curious expression from her blonde twin.

They reach the other side before Kallie can address what she'd been doing. Doctor Nazim opens the door and checks inside for batarians before letting the girls into the room.

Kallie enters the room and looks around. It is just as large as the last comm. room they'd entered, with a computer that's just as large. This one, however, does not seem to have been touched in the slightest. Kallie ignores the bodies littering the room (she hates the fact that she's getting good at this), and heads straight for the console. It blinks to life.

"This looks promising." Satana mutters beside her.

Kallie ignores her. Her fingers are shaking. If they do this, and the wrong species picks up their cry for help, they're all dead.

"You can do this, Miss Kalisee Shepard." Doctor Nazim says gently from behind her. "You can do it."

Kallie begins typing out instructions.

For a while the process is simple. She's used the short-range comm. system many times before; she's even used it when she shouldn't have to eavesdrop on some conversations best left unheard. However, the range does not want to reach quite as far as the atmospheric satellites. She needs an extra power source.

Well…. It worked once before, didn't it?

Kallie plugs her omnitool into the computer and amplifies the power. Pain shoots through her arm as the console finally decides to follow her instructions. Kallie looks at her arm in shock as the message flies off from the console and into the satellites, bouncing from buoy to buoy.

Doctor Nazim snatches her arm back as the omnitool powers down and inspects it. Kallie's arm is now bright red; small blisters are beginning to form along her arm in the shape of her configurations.

Kallie can only think of one explanation. "I guess my omnitool glitched."

The doctor begins pulling out medigel to try and stave off infection. "How long until something happens?"

"I have no way of knowing that."

Doctor Nazim sends her a sharp look. "Guess, then."

Kallie shrugs. "Anywhere from two minutes to twenty four hours. That's how long it'd take an Alliance vessel to come and see why Mindoir's gone silent."

The doctor does not like that answer. "Then I guess we wait."

**XXXXX**

One hour they wait. Then two. At the third hour, Kallie begins to doze off. She jerks herself back awake when she hears screaming and fire in her dreams.

When she does so, she sees Doctor Nazim standing and taking her gun.

This puts Kallie instantly on alert. "Where are you going?"

"Privates Pollard and Jamison, as well as Corporal Warren have been away for too long. I need to find them."

Jo sits up and looks horrified. "You're leaving us here?"

"Only long enough for me to sweep the area and try to find the rest of my squad."

"But—but what if someone answers while you're away?" Satana asks.

"Then answer them." Doctor Nazim replies. "You know just as much about the situation as I do." She places a hand on Jo's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

It is clear none of the siblings want her to leave. Yet she still pulls her rifle up to her chest and leaves them alone in the control room.

Kallie feels the anxiety starting to creep back up on her. They're alone, in the middle of a raid, inside a building of questionable safety, trying to contact someone who might actually end up being an enemy.

_Don't think about that, don't think about that, don't think about that…._

She wonders if her brother is all right. He probably isn't. He probably died as soon as they deserted him. They definitely shouldn't have done that. She'd been terrified, and he had offered her a way out by offering himself up as bait.

If Jonathan Shepard is dead, Kallie is never going to forgive herself.

Ten minutes into not thinking about her brother, the computer beeps. All three girls leap up and over to the console.

"What's happening?" Satana asks.

Kallie reads the screen. She can feel herself become cold and pale. "Someone is attempting to make contact."

She only hesitates for a few seconds. This will either save them or kill them. With trembling fingers, Kallie connects with the new signal.

An entire bridge of humans stares out from the screen, their faces inquisitive at first, then horrified as they recognize the horrified expressions of three bloodied girls.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Jo sighs. She rests her head on the table and lets out a sigh. "Humans!"

"_Who are you?"_ The tallest man—the most decorated one, certainly—asks._ "State your names and your reasons for hijacking an Alliance satellite."_

"You have to help us!" Satana cries out. "We're under attack by batarians. They've set fire to the entire colony!"

"_What?"_ The man standing beside the decorated man looks surprised. _"Tell us what is going on."_

Jo nudges her little sister to the side. "My name is Josephine Shepard." She starts. "This is my twin sister Kalisee, and our little sister Satana. The colony came under fire about four hours ago. We've been trying to get a signal across to someone—_anyone—_to find help. Please, _please _send help."

The man who last spoke seems to examine all three girls individually. Kallie locks eyes with him and holds his gaze. He seems to be searching for any sign that this might be a joke. From his sudden shake of the head, he doesn't find any proof.

**XXXXX**

It's just as Anderson has feared, then. Damn his instincts. He should have checked up on this as soon as the feeling had come up.

He checks over each of the girls individually, somehow hoping that this might be a twisted joke. It is the child on the far right, the red-headed girl, who convinces him otherwise. Her pupils are dilated to the point where they almost envelope her eyes. She is shaking, but she is making a visible effort to stop, as if she knows it won't do her any good.

This isn't some sort of joke. This is real.

He can't help speaking up. "We're sending troops as soon as possible. I am heading the first away team myself."

The blonde girl in the middle—_Josephine_, she'd introduced herself as—nods appreciatively. _"Thank you, sir. Please hurry."_

"Where are you?" Anderson asks.

"_Inside the Alliance Base. We were here with Doctor Nazim and her team, but they got separated. We don't know where they are." _The dark-haired sister replies.

Captain Einer, however, is not finished. "We're reading that the comm. links aren't functioning. How did you manage to get this signal to work?"

At this the redhead ducks her head down quietly. One of her sisters opens her mouth to speak.

"_Kallie amplified a short-range signal to bounce between satellites until someone picked it up."_

From somewhere on the bridge, Anderson hears someone mutter, "You can _do _that?"

The redhead's head ducks even more as all eyes turn to her.

"Um, sir?" The pilot turns in his seat to address Captain Einer. "If they're using a short-range signal, then isn't it a general signal? I mean, it's not attuned strictly to the Alliance."

Anderson feels a chill down his spine. His eyes widen at the same time Captain Einer begins barking orders.

"I want this entire sector swept for batarians! Run a trace on this signal, quickly, see if someone has been listening in." Captain Einer turns to Anderson, and with a snarl that Anderson knows is not intended for him, says, "Lieutenant-Commander Anderson, get down there. Right _now_."

There is a loud _bang! _on the outside door. All three girls jump and turn simultaneously.

The visual on the three girls jumps and then shuts off.

Anderson immediately takes off running, vaguely hearing that yes, there _had _been someone listening into the signal, and there was no way to tell if they had been tracing the signal for long before their ship even picked it up.

**XXXXX**

**I originally wasn't going to post anything Mass Effect related until all of the DLC came out, so I could finish everything off with my head-cannon fitting actual cannon, but I caught the writing bug again. I figured writing on something that can't be canonized totally would be best.**

**Also, I think I'm going to rewrite the first chapter. It's kind of blasé compared to the others. I'll just spruce it up a bit. It's kind of cringe-worthy.**

**Don't forget to vote for the Shepard you want to have survive in the end!**

**Thanks for sticking around, guys! I'm definitely **_**not **_**going to wait another year before posting again.**

_**Amme Moto**_


End file.
